Beyond the Emerald Dawn
by Araceil
Summary: FFVII xover. Voldemort realises that he'll never know the Prophesy so, he sends Harry away. Far away, where the Prophesy has no effect. Only the planet he sends Harry to has its own war, and its a far deadlier one.
1. Chapter 1

**Beyond the Emerald Dawn **

**-**

**CHAPTER ONE**

-

It was absolute chaos.

Privet Drive was in ruins, buildings reduced to rubble or burning, cars turned on their sides, torn in half or just set on fire; trees, flowers, fences, all utterly destroyed. Bodies, strewn across the street like Dudley's discarded sweet wrappers. Victims of _Avada Kedavra_. Unmarked, eyes shut, their faces peaceful as if in mockery of sleep for all their lack of life. The street was next to silent save the crackling of fire, the screams of the survivors, cruel laughter and woops from their attackers, the occasional shout of a spell and the hoarse somewhat panicked rattling breaths of fleeing Dementors, herded along at the horns and jaws of a glowing stag and a remarkably Grim-like dog Patroni.

Harry dove behind a burning car that had been turned on its side, two streets over from number 4, closing his eyes and trying to control his breathing, trying to make the gasping rasp that passed his lips as quiet as he possibly could. His fingers were numb from where they were curled –like claws, around his wand and the butt of Uncle Vernon's hand-gun, trying to flex his stiff fingers, get the blood running into them again. The gun in his hand was one of the modern Beretta M9 series from America, Uncle Vernon had specifically applied for it the month after the Dementor attack on Dudley, in case any more '_freaky business_' happened –this said with a side ways glance at Harry once he'd returned from Hogwarts the next summer, telling the young Potter heir that he would most likely be on the receiving end of the weapon if he wasn't careful.

Harry pulled a face at the memory of his relatives, '_If only you'd listened to me the first time I told you to escape. You might all still be alive._' The raven haired 15-year-old thought.

Earlier that evening, around 8 PM, when he'd been doing the dishes Harry's scar exploded with pain, not the kind from an emotional overload –Harry knew what those felt like, but the kind that came from being within 200-yards of Voldemort. The Proximity kind of pain. Harry, not knowing that the Order member meant to watch him was already dead, acted quickly, grabbing his wand and summoning several bottles of alcohol, a dishcloth, the gun and telling his relatives to hide or get out of the house via the back door. Running upstairs, Harry grabbed the Marauder's Map, his Invisibility Cloak and hastily set Hedwig free with a short note to Dumbledore reading:

'_Death Eaters in Privet Drive_.'

Before grabbing his Firebolt and jumping out of the window under both cloak and disillusionment, he'd studied it to teach in the DA but didn't have a chance to incorporate it in with their lessons before Umbitch caught them. Harry smirked remembering how the Death Eaters had been prepared for spells, not aerial assaults with make-shift Molotov explosives, he'd been very right in assuming they wouldn't know what to do, honestly, the average Death Eater had the same amount of common sense as a Gryffindor second year! Harry had been mightily pleased when his first firebomb shattered right into Bellatrix Lestrange's face, oh it wouldn't kill her it would just leave her so scarred and burned that even Magic couldn't do a damn thing to help. That was enough for Harry right about then. That had been almost 4-hours ago, since then he'd been dodging around the neighbour-hood, picking off Death Eaters one by one, using sneak attacks and stealth to catch them off guard and deal with one on their own.

4-hours of near constant running and hiding and fighting.

Where was the Order?

Where was the Ministry?

Better yet, why had the Death Eaters picked _tonight_ of all nights, to attack now?

It just wasn't making any sense; Voldemort shouldn't have even been able to breech the blood-wards let alone manage to _Avada_ Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Vernon was fair game considering how he didn't have any Evans blood so Harry wasn't all confused about why he died.

Harry opened his eyes and looked around warily; the street was quiet, a little too quiet in Harry's opinion right about now. Tom didn't get as far as he did by being stupid, brash and impatient, by being Gryffindor. No, he got where he was by being very, _very_ clever. Completely off his rocker, but very clever.

"Why, Mr Potter," Harry spin around his wand pointing at Voldemort, spell on his lips, gun pointed at Bellatrix (who Harry was pleased to note, was horribly scarred and probably blind in her left eye.) flinching against the pain that exploded in his scar. "I do believe that is the greatest compliment I have ever received." The snake-faced bastard practically cooed, Harry pulled a face, getting to his feet, no point in kneeling on the ground like an inferior if everyone could see you.

"Underestimating your opponent is the fastest way of finding yourself six feet under," he stated coolly, one eye fixed on Tom while his attention scanned the rest of the assembled Death Eaters. Harry had to smirk when he realised he'd cut their numbers down by at least a quarter on his own, it was a sad day in Jerusalem when the supposedly '_Superior Purebloods Slytherins_' could be taken down so efficiently by a Halfblood Gryffindor soon-to-be-sixth year student.

Harry's eyes narrowed onto Voldemort's gleaming ruby red slits without fear, the Order wasn't coming, neither was the Ministry, either they were too chicken to come and face their demons of neglect, then they were hoping that this would be their Day of Reckoning. Harry sighed, if this was truly the night of the Final Battle, they were all screwed, already dead just still breathing. Dumbledore was wrong, love was _not_ going to save the day, _that_ much was obvious even to Harry, the old coot was just too far gone with age to know that love was not their final weapon.

Voldemort gave him a serpentine smile, crooked yellow teeth giving it a surreal and slightly disturbing edge that was almost more threatening than having Tom's yew wand pointed at his chest.

Whatever the Snake-faced git had been about to say was interrupted when Harry's eyes snapped to a much familiar, much despised face of Peter Pettigrew from where he'd been hiding behind Nott senior. Harry's eyes narrowed, which was probably the only warning they got before the gun in his hand gave off a loud thunderclap, Wormtail squealing in pain as he was thrown backwards, blood flying from his shoulder. A few Death Eaters swore in alarm, not having expected a display of such brutality from the so called '_Child of Light_', Dumbledore's Gryffindor Golden boy, the Golden Pawn, the Boy-Who-Lived. While several other Death Eaters attacked, summoning Harry's wand, binding him with steel cables and levitating him off the ground before he could attack again.

There was a moment of silence which Harry broke, "He dead?"

Voldemort sniffed glancing over his shoulder nonchalantly, much the same way as Harry, "No, not yet."

"Shame," Harry stated with a Slytherin worthy sneer, ignoring the look of intense surprise on Severus Snape's face from where he was hidden at the back of the group of Death Eaters. "Quite frankly, it is beyond me why you would keep the useless lump of Hippogriff turd around. All he does is take up air and make other Death Eaters like Malfoy and Lestrange feel intelligent from his severe _lack_ of intelligence."

Voldemort laughed in surprise, giving Harry an appraising look, as if reassessing him.

'_Let him. I'm dead anyway, As long as I take Wormtail with me all's good. Neville can have Bellatrix, he's had over 15-years to plan his happy time with the Batty Bitch,_' he thought, allowing Voldemort to read the thoughts like a crane fly skimming across his mind before striking out with a ball of his memory on the Cruciatus, shoving it down their Curse Scar link straight into Tommy-Boy's mind. Voldemort hissed in pain and alarm as Harry's memory recreated the pain in the older man's mind, before he started laughing.

"Oh very well played Mr Potter! Very good! You would have made a fine Slytherin," he exclaimed almost giddily, "You possess many of the traits that Salazar prized above all others, cunning, intelligence, ambition, bravery and Slytherin's own Dark Gift!"

Harry cut the Dark Lord off with a sharp snarl, "**SsS **_I swear to you, if you even_ try_ to talk me into joining you, I will reveal what you are to every one of your precious Death Nibblers_. **SsS**" He snarled in Parselmouth, eyes narrowed with a promise. Voldemort paused, lips pursed together as he eyed Harry, an ugly expression twisted upon his features before it relaxed into what would have been a charming smile –if Voldemort had still been the handsome, charming Slytherin Prefect he was in Hogwarts.

"Very well. But we could have been great together, you and I." Harry's eyes narrowed, "No matter, I never did like sharing anyway. It matters not whether you live or die now."

Harry snorted before he realised they were moving and he was being levitated along as they travelled _back_ towards where the ruins of Number 4 were crumbling.

"You mean you didn't come here tonight just to kill me? Oh Voldie, I'm hurt! There's another man isn't there? Isn't there!? How could you!?" he exclaimed dramatically pretending to cry, prompting Death Eaters to bristle –wishing they could hex the annoying brat who dared mock their lord. He didn't believe Voldemort for a moment, he was going to die and he planned on making his last moments as annoying as he humanly could. Voldemort however just laughed at him, as if he were a particularly entertaining pet or small child, looking at him in a manner which made Harry wish to hex the expression off the git's face even as growing threads and worms and weights of unease began to settle in his gut.

Harry mentally growled, not for the first time regretting that he never really paid attention or applied himself in Snape's Occlumency classes. Though to be truthful, Dumbledore should have foreseen Harry's hatred of the Potions Professor and trained him himself, if only to prevent Harry's desire to hex the greasy haired git.

Unease and anxiousness curled uncomfortably in his stomach, tingles of what Harry could identify as fear –repressed and ignored, flicking up and down his skin like particularly irritating fleas. What did he mean '_It matters not whether you live or die_' of _course_ it mattered whether Harry lived or died! He was the only one capable of killing the ugly bastard! The Prophesy said so: _Neither can live, while the other survives._ It definitely sounded like it mattered!

"I have, of course, been unable to view the full Prophesy due to the continuous meddling of that old fool you call a headmaster, your companions and, most noticeably, _you_," the Dark Lord announced, shooting Harry a look of intense fury causing his scar to split and ooze out a fast torrent of crimson while Harry gritted his teeth against a scream/whimper of pain. "And until I am vanquished, you and your companions will not cease to keep its contents secret and get in the way of my every move. And since I _know_ the Prophesy has something to do with you, I cannot risk destroying you completely.

"Which is where our attack upon your home comes into my plan, young Harry Potter," he crowed, grinning like the lunatic Harry knew he was. "For tonight is the one night where the planets align, _all of them_, for three galaxies over." The red eyed Lord was practically giddy at this point, which only further solidified Harry's anxiousness and unease.

"Glad to see you've been taking astronomy lessons from the Centaurs, or is this something that you dredged up from your memories of Hogwarts? Little out of date wouldn't you say?" Harry asked sarcastically, Voldemort narrowed his eyes on him before smirking – a look that reminded Harry instantly of Snape. So that was where that oh-so-annoying evil smirk came from.

"I wouldn't expect a mere Gryffindor to know the significance of this night," Voldemort smirked toothily, red eyes gleaming, "Why do you think Dumbledore and the Ministry have not yet stormed the area?"

"Because they're either cowards or they're hoping that I'll be able to kill you. Frankly, if they think this is their Judgement day, then we're all already dead, just still breathing."

Voldemort laughed, "Oh they're all dead alright, but you. I don't intend to even attempt doing away with you until I know the full contents of that Prophesy, call it prudent planning if you will. I want my victory assured, not endangered; ignorance was possibly the greatest key to my downfall the last time. I don't intend to make the same mistake twice.

"I intend to send you far away tonight Potter. Using an ancient, powerful, obscure Apparation ritual. This was used a number of millennia ago, before the first Ice Ages, back when Muggles were the bumbling cavemen that their appearance suggested. It was originally used to send evil witches and wizards, magical creatures incapable of being controlled or sealed away to a distant planet. Only available once every 666-years when the planets move just enough to allow a clear pathway through the stars to the planet of their choice," Voldemort explained as they finally reached the ruins of Harry's old residence.

The house had been levelled, the ground flattened using a large stone of green rock, it looked almost like green amber in its clarity and texture. Harry had no idea what material it was, and it frankly creeped him out all the more, maybe Tom's theory of the Trans-galactic Apparation had a little more substance to it than Harry was willing to admit. The area was lit up with floating candles, the green amber having a large, elegant and detailed array etched onto its surface, there were three arrays, each linked with odd crisscrossing patterns with symbols around the edges of the entire array. Symbols that looked a lot like Chinese to Harry.

Harry sneered, maybe if he was lucky, Voldemort might be persuaded into killing him instead of sending him away like this. It would make sense, send him where he couldn't cause any trouble and the Prophesy wouldn't matter.

'_Power the Dark Lord knows not_' pshaw, yeah right. The power of Love? Anyone who's seen a Disney Movie knows that Love conquers all, which he might add is absolute bollocks, Tom grew up in a Muggle Orphanage; he had obviously heard of love and knew about it, even if he disdained it.

"Oh yes, Capital idea Tom. Can't beat me so you send me off to some far off planet where I can't bother you. I guess that Gryffindor theory about Slytherins being cowards has finally been proved without a doubt," he sneered.

"SILENCE!! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO THE DARK LORD WITH SUCH DISRESPECT MUDBLOOD BRAT! **_CRUCIO_**!!" Bellatrix shrieked, wand throwing the unforgivable against Harry's body. If he hadn't been concentrating on the pain, Harry would have realised that while Bella may have been something in the Power department, she had serious commitment and imagination issues. Harry would have had more fun in Professor Binn's class while being tortured instead of under Bella's constant monotonic _crucio_s. At least if Binns was torturing him, he would use some of those lovely methods the Goblins had been so fond of.

"Bella," Voldemort purred darkly, just edging his voice with a touch of threat, enough for the woman to drop the curse and hastily prostate herself at the Dark Lord's feet wailing apologies for going against his orders all the while justifying her torturing of Harry because he was insulting the Dark Lord.

Harry, however, was completely ignoring the woman – much like Voldemort, and pulling his magic back into him to heal some of the damage done to his nerves via the Cruciatus. He sniffed, throwing a disgusted and pitying glance at Bellatrix, once a proud witch, now she threw herself at the feet of hypocritical madman.

There was little chance of escape, Harry realised as he was levitated onto the green amber platform, noticing with sick realisation that Aunt Petunia wasn't dead, neither was Dudley and both were sat on one of the arrays leaving two empty. One was for Harry, but who was the other one for?

He swallowed, his wand was in Voldemort's pocket, he'd run out of Molotovs at least 2 hours ago, his gun had been left where they'd caught him – none of the Death Eaters knew how to use it and Harry hadn't been using it much because it both kicked like a mule and let off a bang even louder than a firework. Wandless magic was a little beyond him at the moment and Harry's Invisibility Cloak had snagged on a tree somewhere while he'd been running – none of the Death Eaters had seen or taken the cloak and Harry kept the map in his pocket. His only chance was accidental magic but that would only work if he was terrified, and at the moment...

He was resigned to dying or disappearing.

He sighed as he was levitated into one of the empty arrays, maybe he could attain some measure of peace in this new planet. Sure, the thought of this one been torn apart by darkness would eat away at him, keep him awake at night, give him nightmares. But hopefully...maybe...he could have some peace. After all, hadn't he given the Wizarding world enough? He killed their Dark Lord, it wasn't his fault if they fell into compliance and ignorance, he'd even kept the maniacal old bastard from coming back for a good few years, he'd even put up with the whole Political punch bag thing!

Hadn't he given them enough?

Harry sighed again and tilted his head as Voldemort stepped up to him, a knife of the same material Harry was stood on in his hand. It was already dripping with blood Harry noticed, his eyes flicking over to where Aunt Petunia and Dudley were slowly bleeding to death in their array. Wrists sliced into bloody ribbons along with the veins in the crook of their arms, the backs of their knees and ankles and three main ones across their waists and backs. The etched markings were filling with his relatives' blood, small rivulets racing out around the whole slab of green amber, Harry swallowed suddenly realising that the blood wasn't only just flowing along the etched in grooves, but also in patterns that weren't inscribed upon the stone. Seeping through and into veins of the stone like...poison or ink through someone's wrist or a rose petal.

And then Voldemort sliced into Harry's wrist, not deeply like Aunt Petunia and Dudley who would bleed to death under the Body bind curse that kept them from moving as their lives bled away. But enough so that Harry's blood dribbled onto his own array, lightning it up with a vicious white light.

Voldemort took a step back and stood in the final array, the knife in his hand slicing into his own wrist, the array at his feet glowing with a light drinking darkness.

"(/_Evocem vos, minstrae Voldemort._\)"

Harry began to panic as Voldemort's words not only echoed around the stone silent street, but also in his own head. He choked, trying to wrestle off the bindings of white light that wrapped around his arms and legs and magic, preventing him from escaping the ritual.

He ignored half of what Voldemort was saying, suddenly terrified as he lashed out with magic, trying to loosen his bindings, escape, maybe rescue Aunt Petunia and Dudley show them that he wasn't all bad, that witches and wizards were good and bad, just like other people.

"(/_Cometes-_

Oh Merlin, what was he going to do? Easy, he couldn't do anything.

_A vi ci- _

_virude-_

_fax-_

He didn't understand anything that Voldemort was saying, well, he understood that 'A vi ci' was the beginning of an incantation for a spell called the Endless hell, but he had no idea what it was. 'Fax' was falling star and 'virude' was for green... 'cometes' was comet but what did that have to do with where ever it was Harry was going?

He was so panicked he missed the majority of what was being invoked, catching only single words, syllables, his head was beginning to swim with pain and fear. Voldemort was concentrating upon the ritual instead of holding the pain of their scar link at bay; his glee and anticipation were like knives across his skin and ice in his gut.

_Abeat_

_Harry James Potter_

_Abeat_

_A vi ci_

_Emittam!_/)"

Harry screamed this time, his voice screaming out in harmony with Aunt Petunia and Dudley, his mind suddenly going completely blank and clean and he realised why they were there.

His blood relatives, Harry wasn't to die, but they needed to fill the stone with blood. They were meant to die.

Light claimed him and Harry knew no more of Earth.

-

**Muahah, that's it for Chapter numero uno, to find out what happened to Harry, you'll just have to stick around and wait for me to type the next bit and tell you. Flight of the Raven will be updated soon.**

**Review please! I'd really like to hear your thoughts.**

Araceil


	2. Chapter 2

**Beyond the Emerald Dawn**

-

**CHAPTER TWO**

-

The first thing Harry noticed, when he could think straight enough to understand what he was noticing, was that wherever the hell he was it was cold, it was wet, and it was very windy. After that, or after several failed attempts at trying to get his body to move or even open his eyes, Harry also noticed that his magic had been drained, completely, and to a point where he could not function without it. His bones felt like soggy oatmeal and his muscles like pumpkin juice in skin-like sacks attached to his body, y'know, when they weren't aching or burning enough for him notice the added pain.

He needed to move! It was too cold, probably snowing, if he didn't find shelter – somewhere to stay warm, he would die from hyperthermia or pneumonia! Then what good would he be against Voldemort?

Consciousness was slipping away. Even as he grabbed the last fading threads of consciousness and pulled on them, hard, in a desperate fight to awaken and function. His thoughts were growing sluggish, as if moving through mud.

Like parted fingers trying to hold onto running water, or sand, even as it escapes and drifts away – no matter how desperately he tried to hold on, it slipped away.

Wake up!

Open your eyes!

C'mon Potter! If you die, so does everyone else!

Hermione, Ron, Remus, Neville, Ginny, Luna, Tonks, the Twins, Mrs Weasley, Mr Weasley, Dumbledore, McGonagall...if you die...so do they!

The cold faded from his awareness, the howling wind quietened, the wet...not so wet anymore.

Wake up...

Get...up...

Pl...ease...

Darkness claimed him.

-

Pain.

Pure, simple, uncomplicated, unreasoning, all encompassing, all consuming _pain_.

Time...no longer held meaning.

Why should it? It didn't matter in a place like this; to know the time...was to know when to expect the pain. He was better off not knowing in his opinion.

His world had narrowed, considerably.

There was only pain.

Yes, different kinds of pain, but always there was pain.

The sharp pain from the slice of a scalpel, pain killers were never used, 'Specimens' did not deserve painkillers. The dull ache and throb of broken bones, his spine had been snapped, even as the skin and muscle of his forearm were scraped all the way down to the bone, to see if he could heal from more than one kind of physical trauma at a time. The ghost of pain when he was laying on the floor, bare, vulnerable, broken. The sound of screaming coming from the cursed white room...

He could never like the colour white again.

And then there was the burning that accompanied the screaming and pleading voices in his head. The endless green.

There is no relief. No moments of peace and quiet. Just..._pain_.

Pain administered by his own personal Bellatrix jumped up on too many Pepper-ups, the dull electric light glinting off thick, round, bottle cap glasses, pale spider like hands always trembling, shaking or wringing. Unless they were inflicting pain.

Oh yes, a steadier hand – armed with needle and scalpel, produced better results, louder screaming, screaming until his throat was raw, broken and bloody, until all that came out of his throat was a broken plea, an unheard whisper to please, _please_ just _kill me!_

Pale skin, almost the colour of parchment, always pale, cheeks...flushed with some kind of perverse sense of victory, superiority, glee...he did not know, he did not wish to know. Just thinking about it...what food permitted to him was liable to revisit the world.

Dark eyes, cold, endlessly dark and cruel, those eyes...Voldemort would shudder at the inhumanity within them. Dark eyes like beetles, glittering with glee, malice, detached – near orgasmic pleasure as every pint of blood that was spilled onto the white tiled floor, clear plastic face mask and white lab-coat was replaced with his personal mixture of glowing dark crimson liquid, accepted and altered into his body. Two thirds of a pint of blood, half a pint of that glowing green amber liquid Voldemort used to send him into this..._endless hell_, and another mixture of some black and dark purple slime, it reminded him strongly of pond or soap scum in otherwise fresh-water.

He never knew the name of his torturer. Likewise, his torturer never knew his name, he went by a letter, Specimen L, he sometimes called him Lightning. Reminding him even more of than damning scar which brought him here.

Harry never knew that this man, this creature, this _monster_, was bent on destroying the planet he'd landed upon.

And planned to use him to achieve it.

He had his own little cell, little more than a plastic tube with a smooth metal base and top, not even enough room to stretch out, 3 feet in diameter, about 6-maybe 7 feet high, reminding Harry yet again of his lack in height standing 5'5" tall. The floor opened up, that much Harry knew, he also knew that the tube could fill with that strange green liquid amber – the Scientist called it Mako or Lifestream sometimes.

Harry, despite the loss of his glasses, could see a lot more clearly now as he surveyed the small room he was in, his cell was in a large room with others, he was glad that he was small and stood on two legs, there was a poor white furred She-lion/wolf with a flaming tail curled uncomfortably against the plastic of her own cage. Warm amber eyes, haunted and dull. It made him ache as he surveyed the rest of the room, they were the lucky ones, him and the White furred flametail he'd named Takao. There were _babies_ floating in tanks filled with Mako, their features and tiny bodies mutated, left to die, drowning in the liquid amber that surrounded them. Their bodies slowly decaying in the stagnant liquid, unmoving, dead, and yet the Scientist had not seen fit to remove them from the room. Either they were also part of an experiment or he just kept them around for his own sadism.

Knees hugged to his chest; being careful not to irritate the seeping black infection of his side, Harry choked back his sobs as his mind yet again raced back home. Back to Earth and Hogwarts and his friends.

Takao lifted her head and crooned a low, warbling growl that could not be heard through the plastic, her eyes intelligent and bright as she watched the young Two-Legger cub push water from his eyes.

Oh god, Harry wondered what had happened that night at Privet Drive, when he'd disappeared, did the Order finally realise they'd just effectively murdered the whole of Wizarding Europe? Did they suddenly flood into the area and try to take down the Dark lord in a blazing battle of glory in revenge for his death?

Harry choked, laughing bitterly; they probably couldn't wait to be rid of him!

Ron sure hadn't acted like a friend, neither had Hermione if he was honest about it all. Hermione had placed both him and Ron as her inferiors since day 1 on the Hogwarts Express, just as she'd placed Dumbledore as her Superior from the moment she heard of the Wizarding world. She would forever act the superior; forever treating Harry and Ron as particularly brain dead Flobberworms.

As for Ron, the jealousy thing was enough to get between them. True, Harry thought the red-head had gotten over it after the whole Goblet of Fire incident but...Harry would not put it past him to bend over backwards if Dumbledore suggested a plan for getting rid of both him and Voldemort in one fell swoop, a chance for Ron to shine, a chance for him to get out from under his brother's shadows. Harry sighed looking up, he would never see the red head again, he could afford to be as brutally honest with himself as he wished to be.

Dumbledore was another thing entirely. He knew Snape was a spy for Voldemort, found out that very night when he heard the Prophesy, so he very likely knew that Wormtail was the real spy _all the fucking time! _

It was a little too convenient that when his parents died in the attack and not even a week later Sirius was thrown in jail for betraying them so he could not take Harry in, that there were Anti-werewolf laws in effect during wartime, when everything would have descended into _martial law _thus enabling Harry to live with Remus. Or hell, even his parents' third choice the Longbottoms! Very convenient that they were attacked thus forcing Harry to live with his Muggle relatives before anyone could question why he had not been taken to them instead of to his relatives where he would know nothing of the Magical world, where he would be abused and neglected and would instantly welcome the rescuer who swept him away from such a place.

Naïve about a world he should have grown up in, emotionally abused and eager to prove himself. The perfect pawn, so easily manipulated. Too convenient that Hogwarts is supposedly the safest place in Europe and yet he came face to face with Voldemort in his first, second, fourth and fifth years in the bloody building. A little too convenient that the castle wards just _breezed_ over the Dark Horcrux in the form of Riddle's Diary in Ginny's possession, a little too convenient that the wards opened up to allow Animagi into the school during third and fourth year. A little too convenient happened far too many times at Hogwarts to be a coincidence. Just as it was far too convenient that Harry met with a Light based Pureblood and a Muggleborn within an hour or so of getting onto the Hogwarts Express, made an enemy of a Dark Pureblood within the same timeframe, all the while within a place of Hogwarts, where Dumbledore's power reigned supreme.

Just a little too convenient.

Harry growled angrily, feeling his magic stir. After being flung into this strange world, Harry's magic was...diminished. As if he could not form a proper channel to the core within his soul, nor was he able to use the magic in the area around him, it was as if...the world was dying and taking magic with it.

If anything, Harry probably only had a few _true_ friends, very few people who had been 100-percent honest with him at Hogwarts, and yet he could never be sure of his enemies though. All the Slytherins seemed to be against him but he couldn't be sure if that was Dumbledore's influence or the fact that he'd let the insult fester for too long and allowed it to blossom into something else. Neville and Luna were good bets for true friendship, as were the Twins, Zacharias Smith – the boy was calm, level-headed and picked at every little detail he would be a good friend to have on his side, Terry Boot would also be an asset, what with his Ravenclaw smarts. Cho Chang, after their disastrous relationship in Harry's fifth year he could probably count on her to dislike him but be sensible enough to know they had to work together – that would lessen Dumbledore's manipulations of her. Draco Malfoy, as much as Harry hated to admit it, would be a good friend, as would a lot of people from the Slytherin house. Remus would undoubtedly be one of those friends, as would Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, and strangely enough, Harry's mind screamed at him to trust Alastor Moody and Xiomara Hooch.

Harry sighed, dropping his head onto his knees, he should have learned Occlumency from Snape; it would have come in handy while trying to deal with the pain from the Scientist.

Bellatrix had nothing on this guy.

Harry took a deep breath and cast his mind back toward those lessons.

Well. Now was a good time to get it right, he'd been left alone for too long, the Scientist would be back soon.

-

It was long.

Very long, brushing just past his shoulders.

Tangled and messy and wild, but powder fine, soft and silken, like a baby's hair. Probably an effect of the Mako baths he was subjected to repeatedly.

Harry dropped the strand of hair and leaned against his plastic wall, he'd been moved into a different room now, it seemed like an age ago, Takao was still with him, a plastic tank – more suited to her size - across the room from him. There were two others in the room, a young woman with burning red hair and blue eyes, she was constantly bathed in Mako and Harry could make out the low diffused glow of a Materia under her pod.

In the other cage was a creature that Harry had no intention of ever encountering or acknowledging. It was...the closest description Harry could come up with was some kind of bastardized Dementor, Troll and Blast-End Skrewt all rolled into one. He still had no idea where the tentacles and feathers came from but it was something to pass the time guessing.

He'd probably been in this place for a few years, it was still cold, he was still naked – nudity meant little to any of them at the moment, and the pain had become a companion that was never far away.

The only moment he had any notion of time was when he fell into a coma, six weeks, six days and six hours, to attain his magical inheritance. It seemed that being separated by several hundred solar systems didn't mean a whole lot to Lady Magic. His coma had fascinated, frustrated and confused the Scientist. Harry had paid for that in the following weeks with increased experimentation, to find out what effects the coma had, had upon him. To say that things were different would be an understatement, because, added to the increase in his abilities and a few new ones that he got from his Potter blood, the magical adoption of Sirius and Voldemort and the blood of his not-so-muggle-born mother, all of those piled on top of each other...broke the binding on his magical core. The binding Dumbledore put upon him as a child, before he was even graced with the Lightning Bolt scar upon his brow.

Harry didn't think he would have survived this long if he had not mastered Occlumency and Legilimency, using the same iron will and bull-headed determination he employed to learn the Patronus charm, some time after he arrived.

He had been rather violently surprised when he discovered his Mental plane was that of the Gryffindor Common room, decked out in Gryffindor colours, the sword of Gryffindor set above the mantle piece, a thick Golden spider's web stretching across the ceiling and a coat of arms above the fireplace, a large rampant lion in the middle of the scarlet and gold-leaf background, a much smaller bronze Raven with her wings spread out and a black badger snuffling about at the lion's feet. There was nothing to suggest a Slytherin, no room for a snake in the Lion's den.

To say his reaction at the sight was violent would be an understatement.

The Golden Web had been shredded and then Harry went about rebuilding everything from the bare wooden floorboards up to the now endless nightsky he employed instead of the Golden Web – the web that he suspected Dumbledore had a hand in. However, in rebuilding his mental plane, examining his memories and perceptions...Harry discovered something...disturbing.

He had been manipulated so thoroughly, his mind was, in essence, not his own. It was what _Dumbledore_ wanted it to look like, the way the old goat thought it should be. And Harry had no idea, no clue, that the old man had been doing that, been checking the bindings around his Magical core every time, reinforcing them. But he couldn't hold them as Harry got older and his magic began to actively bite back at the restraints. He was frightened that if they broke and Harry found out he'd been bound, he would kill him. Damn those twinkling eyes! Harry should have known that the headmaster had been using Legilimency on him since day one to fiddle with Harry's perceptions, mould him into the perfect little pawn.

After a bit of thought, he realised, Snape hated him because of what Dumbledore moulded his mind into, he was a master Occlumens and Legilimens, no doubt he could see the truth of Harry's mind.

He may have hated the Scientist, despised Voldemort for sending him to this world, but he did not hate the peace and time it gave him to go over what he knew. Harry had a habit of hoarding information and going over it after the fact, which only happened if he _hadn't_ visited Dumbledore directly afterwards. Convenient that.

Harry rebuilt his mind the way he wanted to, the way he felt it should have been, based on his memories and the fresh opinions he gained from shredding that Merlin-damned gold spider web, evidently, it had been pinning back his Slytherin side, his _true_ personality.

He had a lot of repressed anger issues as his Wandless magic demonstrated by tearing up several of those hulking guards that the Scientist often had with him to drag Harry from his cell.

He wondered if the Potions Professor was one of the very few teachers – McGonagall aside, who didn't actually view Harry with a preconceived notion of what the Boy-Who-Lived should be. Add to that, he seemed determined to ensure that Harry survived at least until he was thirty. He could trust Snape, just with a healthy amount of wariness and respect, the Dark Wizard was not one to be coddled, and neither was _he._

Harry smiled, catching Takao's eyes and started their usual conversation, the great feline was a clone who had been imbued with an ice and lightning Materia. She was a first class Lady, Harry had taught her everything he knew, including how to control his magic which allowed her to control the imbuing of the elements in her. She could call up lightning storms in her cage or freeze the water/Mako around her.

'**_Takao, how are you today?_**'

She sighed, placing her white furred head in her paws and gave him a shrug of her fore-quarters, '_I have been better Harry. _He_ will be back soon, if his mutterings and mumblings are to be believed, he plans to breed me. With that,_' she growled, nodding her great head in the direction of the Bastard creature Harry had taken to calling Bob.

'**_He wants you to get it on with Bob?!_**' Harry mentally spluttered when Takao's eyes finally reconnected to Harry's own green ones.

'_If his ramblings are to be believed,_' she confirmed, her mental voice resigned with disgust and rage, Harry's eyes narrowed. '_Careful Harry. Your eyes are glowing, if you are not careful your magic will lash out again and you will not be able to resist the next lot of experiments,_' she pointed out, baring her teeth in warning.

The Scientist explained a lot about the world, Harry could tell without his Legilimency abilities that the Scientist was not lying, his perceptions were just coloured with the inhumanities of a man who saw everything as a project, any project that did not succeed was deemed a failure and beneath his notice. He failed to recognise failed experiments; he also failed to recognise those that he had finished with unless they were branded into his mind.

The scientist had a very messy mind, and was an even messier note-taker. Half of the experiments he performed were never documented, neither were the results, occasionally the man had small flashes of being a normal human being. But they were usually only when he displayed a touch of disgust as a splatter of blood stained his favourite lab coat. Something small and heartless.

'**_Have you any idea how long we have been here?_**' Harry asked, he had not asked before, it had not seemed important as he tried to learn Occlumency and come to terms with his Magical inheritance. Takao shook her head and reconnected their eyes,

'_No. But I believe Peru might,_' she said, nodding to the red haired woman in Mako.

Harry had taken to calling her Peru, as she reminded him significantly of a dragon, he had never seen a Peruvian Vipertooth but he assumed they would be similar to the woman in the vat of Mako. Small, fast, poisonous, violent and wild. There were some things never meant to be captured and confined, Peru and the Vipertooths were one of them.

'**_Peru? Have you any idea how long we've been down here?_**' he asked the young woman, the low growl of her subconscious subsided briefly, she saw Harry and Takao as family and though she could not remember her name or the names of those she once loved and cared for, she knew enough of her past to know she grew up in a place called Wutai, where honour and family were important enough to repress the snarl of her subconscious.

'_You are coming up close to two and a half years. Takao had been here for three and I have been present for at least the same amount of time. The last thing I remember is the silver haired Triplets in the water of the Ancient Forest before I woke here and under the bastard's scalpel,_' Peru never called The Scientist by his name, despite the fact that they knew his name, none of them ever spoke it; he was always 'that bastard' or 'the malboro shite' or 'The Scientist'. In that respect, Harry had begun to view the refusal of speaking his name as similar to that of not speaking Voldemort's in the Wizarding world, for once, he kind of understood the fear that the others felt – the slightly shivering niggle at the back of their subconscious when they spoke that name.

'**_Thanks Peru,_**' he thought and received a small purr from her subconscious.

Two and a half years, Harry sighed, leaning against the plastic tank, more than enough time for Voldemort to destroy Europe and begin to rebuild. Especially if everyone believed he was dead, thus taking with him their morale and hope.

Harry laughed, what did he care?

He would die in this tank or on that operating table, it wasn't like he could do anything to help them even if he _did_ break out!

Why did he care? It wasn't like any of them would've cared if he lived or died if he wasn't ultimately the one who would destroy Voldemort.

Why should he care?

Why did he care?

_It's the way they made me._

-

Everything was a haze of pain, his tank was filled with Mako and he had no breathing mask to ensure his survival. He could see Takao drowning in the tank opposite him, trying desperately to freeze the Mako around her so she could chip it away with lightning to breathe, it wasn't working, Bob had died a few weeks back when Hojo tried to breed him with Takao, torn to bloody little shreds when the Lioness was done with him, and Peru had already been sucking on an oxygen mask when the Mako descended.

The Scientist mentioned something like this, to prevent any of his precious specimens being used against him, he'd rigged them all to drown in Mako or be so violently exposed to it that they mutated beyond their own ability to adapt and die. Well, he'd already been far too exposed to Mako to die from the poisoning it could induce, that left drowning, which also wouldn't happen, he decided, as he reached for his magic.

Over the last year, he had been working frantically to access his magic, he used Legilimency on himself to reach down through his mind and hunt for the magic core, to channel it out of his body. He could do small things; levitate stuff, Legilimency, even a few stunners – most of which aimed at Bob when he decided that going berserk in his tank would be a fun way to pass the time. The only time he'd ever done something substantial was in a temper tantrum and tore several Mako-mutations to little shreds when they came to take him out of his cell.

Now he was turning his attention to the Bubble-head charm, a charm he never learnt how to do, and didn't even know the first thing about!

Harry mentally cursed, swimming up for the top of the tank, hoping against hope that there was an oxygen bubble or something that he could apply around his face. Nothing! Not even a congregation of small condensed bubbles that you would find on the sides of a saucepan being brought to the boil.

His vision was going dark and Harry wondered why he was even bothering to hold his breath.

He knew he would die in this place, why should survival matter so much now?

Not a few hours ago, he'd asked Hojo to kill him, if only to give him more raw materials to use in his other experiments. The scientist simply blinked at him and stated that he was, so far, the most interesting specimen he had ever encountered, there were no creatures on the planet who had the same blood work or brain waves as him, or such a high Mako adaptation level. He prattled about his son for a bit before banishing Harry back to his tank, it was only a few hours ago and the dark haired youth did not doubt that Hojo had hit the self destruct button and fled to his lab up in the Crater. He'd bragged about the Crater being the perfect place for his lab, yet it was still being constructed as the battle that took place there a good few years ago had destroyed much of the place.

Harry didn't know why, but whenever Hojo mentioned the Crater, a soft voice sang in his head, showing him images of a hard rocky land, and another filled with golden roots and plants over pale Mako and water, a stone basin with a bright green glow, flourishing trees over head. It was strange, but Harry had not disputed the images. He truly was insane, the Daily Prophet had been right, he was touched in the head and he didn't mind. At least he was honest about it, unlike some.

So why was he still holding his breath?

Oh yeah, he was too stubborn to die.

Pity, he would have welcomed the rest and the freedom.

His lungs burned and demanded air, air that Harry couldn't give them, so he gave them Mako. And the world went black once again as his magic lashed out at the world, at the Mako in his body.

And he dimly heard the sound of shattering plastic from across the room, Takao spluttering and growling, shouting his name.

The world burned, and Harry heard screaming.

-

**:D muahaha, chapter two done. I got bored and finished this before chapter six of Raven. So not that long of a wait. And just so you guys know, in case you forgot or didn't read the summary right, this is an FF7 crossover.**

**Review pleasums. Reviews make me happy ;.;**

Araceil


	3. Chapter 3

**Beyond the Emerald Dawn**

-

**CHAPTER THREE**

-

There was nothing fresh or inviting about the morning that poured over the large valley just north of Rocket Town, it clung, the stench of rot overpowering every other scent save the thick musky reek of wet Chocobo plumage. Morning dew congealed in an oily film over plastic tarps, metal bars; a slime over all the mechanics of war. The cold seeping mist and offensive scent wrapping lovingly about the occupants of the valley, creeping in through gaps in clothing and blankets to tease and disturb their restless sleep. If, indeed, they slept at all.

"General, sir?"

There was no answer to his query save the slight shifting of weight from his commanding officer, nothing more than a shifting of his shoulders but it was enough to acknowledge him. The Second lieutenant took a deep breath, feeling the twisting of nervousness in the pit of his gut as he stood so near to The General, never closer than two feet, never beside or in front of him. He didn't have the right to act as an equal or a superior. He'd never had the kind of relationship with The General as the First Lieutenant, he didn't dare.

"A message just came in from Cosmo, sir." Second Lieutenant General Kevin Lau informed him, "The President and his cabinet are en route to Corel and we- I mean, you have orders to meet them there. Richard Palmer specifically requested for your attendance." Lau added as if it would make a difference.

A snort from behind them made Lau jumped almost a foot in the air, being around The General always put him on edge and that feeling was only multiplied when his First Lieutenant General was within sight.

The General turned slightly to watch his subordinate as he leaned against the black feathered side of his Chocobo, Twilight, an expression of amused disbelief upon his features.

"As if. He doesn't even show up to meetings that the President requests of him and they got some serious history. What makes that bastard think he can order us around?" the man demanded before snorting with laughter and reclining against Twilight as the Chocobo warbled fondly, nuzzling the slender youth as he watched Lau with inscrutable intense glowing green eyes.

Lau coughed shifting his weight anxiously under the inspection; the First Lieutenant was... a different creature all together compared to the other Generals and Lieutenants. There was something alien about him, as if he didn't belong, he didn't understand the most common figures of speech or slang or any history, and at the beginning, he didn't even know what Materia was or how to handle a weapon. Now, he could fight with anything, Materia in his hands was more powerful, his Chocobo ran faster as if he weighed nothing heavier than one of her own feathers.

"Lieutenant." The General murmured, causing those eyes to slide away from Lau almost making the dark haired Gongagian collapse in relief.

There was a pause before the First Lieutenant sighed, "oi, Lau. Wasn't there something else to add on the end of that sentence?"

"Um, yes. The troops are ready for your orders sir. We move out on your command."

The General sighed turning away from the two of them and looking out over the valley, the just rising sun striking white gold and amber streaks in spiky blond hair, setting glowing blue eyes on fire with unearthly light.

"Do we know how this is going to work out...? I didn't attend..."

"...the meeting? I know, I was there." The First Lieutenant pointed out with a grin from where Twilight was fussing over his hair.

His half-sarcastic half-teasing tone earned him a smile from his commander. For a moment, Lau was jealous; he never understood how the First Lieutenant could treat the General as just another soldier, another man fighting for his life and his home when it was obvious he was so much more. He was jealous that the General would smile and laugh with him like that, that he was afraid of the both of them, while they, obviously, held no fear of each other or him.

The First Lieutenant sniffed scratching Twilight behind her ears with a gloved hand, "The Chocobo lancers are going to cut around and attack the left flank. I think they should be able to pass through with minimal casualties. There are more of them than even I thought we had. The infantry will follow with an assault on the west edge coming in from the coast line, hopefully driving some of Hojo's troops out into the open. Our snipers on the ridge over to the East will be waiting. It wouldn't be a bad idea to call Halley and the rest of the Highwind unit to cover us from the air either."

"The Highwind unit are guarding the President en route from Neo-Midgar to the Corel base." Lau pointed out snidely, he didn't like the way the First Lieutenant just took control like that.

"Do they know if any of the prisoners are still alive?" The General murmured.

A few days back there was an attack on a small village just outside of Rocket, three people were taken, all of them pregnant women. Chances are they were still alive, especially if the mad-man was attempting the Sephiroth Project again. Then again, despite what the creatures had been programmed to do, if they got hungry, well, the First Lieutenant didn't hold much hope for the survival of the three women and their unborn children.

The First Lieutenant shook his head, "We've had Chocobos flanking them for a good few miles, but they haven't been able to see anything." Lau sniffed, they were ignoring him again.

Glowing eyes narrowed into slits.

"Crush them. That's an order."

Lau swallowed hard, wincing at the ferocity that voice contained, as if just by saying it, the General could make it be.

'_Don't be stupid. Of course he can._' Lau mentally berated himself.

"Yes sir." The First Lieutenant nodded and got to his feet, dusting off his SOLDIER issue uniform with its own out-landish additions that just further identified him as some outsider.

"Lau, get the troops together. We'll be moving soon." The General ordered him softly, his voice never rising above a whisper but was effortless to hear.

Lau saluted, and quickly walked away, leaving his General and First Lieutenant alone, staring out at the future, at the battle to come, as unstoppable as any natural disaster.

-

Harry cracked his knuckles before tilting his head to watch the blond, "What's your Danger radar tellin' ya?" He asked quietly flicking dark raven black hair from his eyes and approached the General.

He shook his head, "We may have a Boss on our hands." He muttered, Harry's eyebrow arched,

"I didn't think he had enough raw material and Jenova cells to make another one of them. Especially now. He knows we're just going to tear it apart."

The General shook his head his lips pursing and Harry sighed scratching under the dark green bandana he'd wrapped about his head to hide the Lightning Bolt scar. The one thing that the Mako in his bloodstream did not, could not, heal for him.

It had been 2 years ago since the General's army made their first push to Icicle, 2-years since the blond had rescued him, Takao and Peru from Hojo's lab. And they'd fought at his side ever since. 2 years of constant war and fighting at the front lines of what was considered the bloodiest most vicious war of the planet to date, only outranking the ShinRa-Wutai war because of the Jenova Spawn that Hojo was capable of sending out to destroy entire armies. They'd already lost half the air-force and the Navy had been decimated four-years ago.

It had been six years ago that the war had begun, five since the General joined and cut the number of fatalities by a staggering 75-percent, and kept bringing men and women and Chocobos back, time and time again from Battle after battle from month after month of the front lines. Three years since the successful cloning of an old military power-house, Previously a Lieutenant General, now General Zackary Sinclair SOLDIER First-class, and again cut the number of fatalities by a further amount. But it wasn't enough, they were still loosing, it was just slower, another 10 maybe 15 years and they would probably be all that was left of the ShinRa-Wutai army, the only force standing between Hojo and the complete annihilation of their planet. And only 3 months ago... since they cloned him.

First Lieutenant General Harry Sinclair –formerly Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Has-Far-Too-Many-Titles-Hyphenated-With-His-Name, was perhaps the first of the General's Lieutenants to survive longer than a year of the constant war. When Harry had been rescued from Hojo's lab there was absolutely no record of him in ShinRa or any of the other villages, he essentially didn't exist. Zack offered to adopt him as a younger brother, Harry would get his last name, his hometown and ShinRa would rather effectively avoid him like the last slum plague and try not to cause him trouble.

Harry scratched at his head, studying at his General from lowered eyelashes and a tilted head.

The blond was only a little taller than he was, probably due to the spikiness of his hair, Harry sighed finding himself wondering when the last time the General ate was. The blond's body was raw-nerves, muscle, sinew and bone, every spare ounce of fat had been stripped from his body from the constant fighting, usually Harry could convince him to take a break, eat something and take a nap while he took care of the less important things but he'd been especially stubborn in the last month as their troops headed back to friendly ground. Running the gauntlet of horrifying monsters that Hojo threw at them in an expected yet highly annoying attempt to capture them again or just plain kill them.

Zack was going to eat him alive, the last time the dread-locked SOLDIER had seen his fellow General that shirt had fit him, where as now, it hung off his emaciated frame. He was dressed in the same clothing he'd worn while fighting Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz in Midgar, his usual SOLDIER issue pants, steel toe-capped boots with a spring release knife in the toes and poison tipped spring release spikes at the heels, for hand to hand combat. A sleeveless knitted shirt with a high collar, a black cotton vest underneath that and a black shoulder guard, the Braver crest upon it which held the magnetic sheath for his Ultima Weapon. The other selection of swords he'd used while fighting the Sephiroth cloned triplets had been given to Zack as the Buster Sword was rusted through and keeping watch over the old Midgar and Kalm. A shrine to the original Zack who gave his life to protect his bestfriend.

Harry looked aside, he'd been told the whole story, since Nibelheim, Midgar, AVALANCHE, the Temple of the Ancients, the Crater, the silver haired triplets and the beginning of the war. The whole story with nothing held back. And Harry could not help but admire the blond for picking himself up and going to fight in the war against his tormentor, the very man who had caused him so much pain, the Puppet master of Gaia, just as Dumbledore was the Puppet-master of Earth.

Cloud lived for his men, for an ever-diminishing number of loyal soldiers, for a group who hadn't set foot on friendly soil in almost 12 months, who looked to him to show them the way home. Harry shook his head sadly, watching the General with understanding he knew on an intimate level.

'_They trust him. Because they know he's seen hell, and come back. They never realised that he never left. Just traded one for another._'

The General twitched, squeezing his eyes together tightly as Harry flinched and turned slightly as the screams roiled past him in a wave of stabbing green.

Lifestream.

They could control it now; it didn't drop The General like it had in the past, a lifetime ago, it pained Harry yet no more than his Curse Scar normally did, he withstood the pain. The other Mako enhanced SOLDIERs had not been so lucky, the force of the screaming green often drove them insane or just killed them when their brains began to swell and bleed. Cloud, Zack, Harry, Nanaki, Peru, and Takao heard the screaming and withstood it, understood it and kept themselves together, Chaos shielded Vincent from the screaming green. They could even fight through it, if they had to; fight an entire battle while the green stream of pain was trying to tear their minds and souls apart. Claw past that to make a thousand command decisions, lead another army, sit down at the end and force themselves beyond the pain to heal and save as many men and women and Chocobos as they could, send a report back to base, regulate the complete death and injury total, mercy kill those who could not keep up or would die anyway, burn all the bodies to prevent Hojo from claiming more raw materials before collapsing back into their bedrolls, shivering at the sharp emerald knives being pushed through their thoughts. It was like an Occlumency attack from within, unblockable. The fact that the daggers of pain were pure life energy, the very source of everything The General and AVALANCHE thought they were fighting for, didn't seem to matter to either Cloud or Harry anymore.

Harry growled, he did not like the Life-Stream, especially when it interfered like this. They were fighting a war for her, she did not need to interfere and throw their concentration off, to torture them, to remind them of her pain and force them to keep fighting.

Stepping forward he placed an arm at the General's neck and unfurled the wings of his magic, thick feathered power wrapped around the two of them in a shield, denying the broiling green her prey, a shriek of outrage bled away from their minds as the soft feathers of power muted it and shielded them. He could block the Life-Stream, the Cetra, for a time, until the end of the battle but they would be back, and they would be furious at their denial.

"_General, sir. First Lieutenant, sir? We're ready._" Reported a tinny voice from the radio hooked to the waist band of their clothes.

The blond pushed himself to his feet, shrugged off Harry's hand, turned, stepped out of the cocoon magic that protected him from the Cetra's anger and picked up the Ultima Weapon, feeling his hand and arm muscles ache in terrible recognition, as if he had never put it down.

One whistle, smooth and loud, brought his Golden Chocobo, Kin, to his side as he jumped into the saddle with an ease bred of familiarity. Something that had amused Harry to no end upon finding out, the General was once an S-class Chocobo racer at the Golden Saucer during the Meteor Event, he was the one to teach the Chocobo ranchers how to breed the rare Gold and Black Chocobos that enabled their Soldiers to get from one place to another in great speed. Funny how it took Inbreeding to get such talented and important Chocobos, maybe there was something to the Pureblood tripe after all.

General Cloud Strife, the highest-ranking ShinRa officer in the world army, looked into the morning sun, his First lieutenant smoothly mounting his Chocobo, perched at his side. Cloud took a deep breath, blue eyes hardening like mirrors before turning and leading his troops into battle against the western wing of Hojo's army, Harry at his back, the wings of his magic turning black and visible as magic formed in his hands, stretching to the shape of a demonic black scythe in each hand.

It was the middle of the sixth year, in what had been quietly, unceremoniously dubbed the Second War for the Planet by AVALANCHE.

-

It had been roughly a year ago that the idea had struck him.

He was never usually one for epiphanies or philosophy, but it seemed oddly appropriate.

In the First War for the Planet had been a race for the Legendary Materia, Holy and Meteor. Aerith had been their Holy, the last of the Cetra, those who were one with the planet and sought enlightenment, life and happiness. She was their Holy, fighting to bring life and preserve it in their broken world by sacrificing herself to summon the LifeStream and the Holy magic. JENOVA was their meteor, a stranger from another world out to destroy all life and claim the planet as their own. But when JENOVA was locked away, Sephiroth became Meteor when JENOVA claimed him as her own. Opposites, different and yet the same in ways no one could imagine. Both thought they were Cetra, both battling over Gaia, both, technically, dead.

A year ago, he'd been watching Harry from the corner of his eye as he tore great bloody swathes in Hojo's forces, demonic scythe in one hand, Lightning Materia in his other, green eyes glowing brighter than even Mako enhancements could manage, wings of black shadows and power arcing from his shoulders. Visible to only those with Mako enhancements. Twilight warbling beneath him clad in battle armour, the same dark power around his First lieutenant coiling lovingly around her, allowing the black feathered bird to attack and fight as well.

Death. Everything about his First Lieutenant that day reminded him of death in the most profound sense. As if he was death in human form, an angel of vengeance against Hojo.

And he'd laughed, laughed because it suddenly struck him that now Sephiroth and Aerith were both dead; the claim to the Legendary Materia had changed. And Cloud realised, he was their Holy. The Holy belonging to the planet, the planet's champion, its defender and protector and healer. Its sacrifice if need be. While Harry was now their Meteor, a stranger from another planet, violent and dangerous, Death in a physical form; yet instead of the Jenova controlling Sephiroth into being their Meteor, Harry was working with them, protecting the planet as well. Harry was the Meteor born of their planet.

Different and yet the same in so many ways.

After the battle, Cloud handed Harry three Materia orbs. An Ultima Offspring, a Comet offspring and the black Materia of Meteor. The very first Materia the planet created, back when it was learning how to solidify and compress its magic and power into physical form. Created in the crater of the first Meteor impact, it was fitting that the Black Materia, which would be cold, colder than the void of space in the wrong hands, would be created there while the Holy was born along side it. Both the same, yet different.

And for a moment, when the Black orb rested within Harry's hand, Holy warmed briefly in approval against the skin of Cloud's chest. And he knew, he'd given it to the right person.

-

"Oi, General Spike."

Cloud woke instantly, a knife already in his hand, held against the jugular of the man standing over him. He froze, recognizing the voice as sleep fell away from him, fell away like the blanket that had been tucked around his shoulders before he sprung to his feet.

'_A blanket?_' He thought in confusion as he lowered the knife under Harry's disapproving glowing green eyes, so much darker and richer than Sephiroth or Aerith's.

"Spike...we've spotted some of the enemy along the south cliff. It looks like they're trying to ambush the left flank. You're not going to like this. There's more along the east side, looks like they're going to go for us at dawn."

Cloud looked up. It was still the middle of the night. He sighed in frustration.

'_Oh yeah, Hojo's really going to stop us now, stop us when we're so close to home._' He thought sarcastically.

Cloud bared his teeth in an action he'd seen Harry perform a number of times when angry. It reminded him of Nanaki or some wild animal at times but it made it easier to handle the anger and feral urge to just kill and run head first into a battle without planning.

He bit back a snarl.

"We move out now. Get the troops together."

Harry said nothing but instead tapped his foot, signifying that he was still waiting for orders. Despite the fact that he was perfectly capable of making command decisions on Cloud's behalf (As he had done so repeatedly in the middle of a battle, gaining a reputation almost as impressive as Cloud's own.). He just liked irritating the blond by tapping his foot; it reminded him of Scarlet or Elena on a bad day.

"Get every extra lancer we have out there with a light and an Exit Materia, far enough away to avoid the cannons. Use the automatics...pull them off the tanks if you have to... we can't use them anyway, they just keep slowing us down."

"Scarlet's going to kill you if you lose another tank." Harry pointed out, grinning wickedly.

Cloud snorted, "She'll have a hard time doing it, when she couldn't even kill me in that weird-ass giant bloody robot of hers." Cloud murmured remembering the robot that Scarlet and Tubby in the green suit had tried to attack him with when they'd parachuted into Midgar as the Diamond WEAPON moved to attack them. "Go tell every platoon to get ready. Hojo will attack at dawn thinking we are unprepared." The blonde general smiled like a demon, echoing the smirk already curving onto Harry's lips. "If he wants a massacre, why should we make him wait for it?"

Harry nodded, and darted back into the shadows as Cloud got to his feet and picked up the Ultima sword from where it had lay beside him. He sighed reading his somewhat battered and bloodstained watch by the glow of the blade, frowning at how little the numbers had changed.

'_I didn't sleep for more than two hours tops... the first time I closed my eyes in... how long?_' He thought muzzily, he knew that Harry was determined to make sure that he got at least two hours sleep every day ("I don't want to have to tell the President that you killed Palmer Junior because he peed in your Cheerios and you were cranky from lack of sleep.") and some food into him, he appreciated the effort and he knew that even if Zack hadn't told him to keep an eye on Cloud that the younger black haired male would do it anyway. Harry had a disturbingly good understanding of his fellow soldiers and especially Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE, seeming to connect best with Vincent, Cid and Nanaki as opposed to Barret and Tifa whom he was little leery of, saying they reminded him a little much of some people he would rather forget.

A Wutai shout went out into the air and Cloud swung the Ultima weapon onto its sheath at his back. He turned with a sigh as he whistled Kin before looking up at the clear night sky, the burning stars and wondered... would the people of Harry's world let him live with them? There was no place for him here, just constant pain and disappointment. That was if Harry ever got back, Cloud wouldn't mind meeting his people. Especially Dumbledore, Cloud would have a nice conversation with the old man should they ever come face to face. Yes, a nice conversation.

He shook his head of thoughts and returned to the abyss.

And he smirked when it trembled.

-

Kin: Means gold in Japanese. (Seemed appropriate since I called my Goldie Kin. 8D)

-

**End of Chapter three! A bit weird cause I skipped a bit, but don't worry. You'll find out what happened! Don't ask what's happening on Earth, we won't be finding out until Harry goes back. Which shouldn't be too far off. (Is already planning how Harry reintroduces himself to Snape XDD**

**Harry: ZOMGITSLIKESNAPEANDHE'SSTILLAGREASYGITANDLIKEASPYANDLIKESTILLALIVEANDITSAWESOMEANDLIEKWHOAS!!! 8D hi.**

**Snape: o.o;;; **

**AVALANCHE and Zack: LOL.)**

**Review pleasums.**

Araceil


	4. Chapter 4

**Beyond the Emerald Dawn**

-

**CHAPTER FOUR**

-

_Incendio._

_Jovis Tempestas._

_Sagitta Magica Lucis._

Fight, and fight, and fight. Arms ache with fatigue, burn in terrible recognition of the chaos and bloodshed around you. Eyes ache at the horrors witness, yet to close them would mean certain death. Wade, shin deep, in blood and gore and corpses, soldiers screaming for their mothers/fathers/brothers/lovers/sisters, ect, ect, plastered with their own sweat, shit and blood, broken bodies wrapped around the carcass of their latest kill.

War was not attractive, romantic, intelligent and it most certainly was not glamorous.

Harry sighed throwing an **Ice3** –backed up with a non-verbal _Sagitta Magica Glacialis_, at a Mako enhanced Gi as he poured a Mega-Elixir down the throat of a Chocobo lancer, her legs half shattered when an unknown monster –Hojo was always coming up with new ones, tore her Mountain green from right between her thighs.

"Thank you sir." She gasped licking the remains of the rather violently neon coloured potion from her lips; Harry nodded easing her to her feet as he tossed off another reinforced **Ice3** at an opportunistic enemy.

"Here, take this and go and defend what remains of the second division." He ordered handing her a small handgun armed with a Fire Materia, it was a recently spawned one and had only achieved level 2 but Harry didn't think that the Lancer would be able to handle a completely matured one judging by her current rank. The green energy shivered and stabbed into his mind, voices clamouring for attention, the pain in the back of his head like a dull thump, almost making him wish for the days when it was concentrated in his Curse Scar, at least then he could use Occlumency to block the pain out.

The voices screamed and only the slightest darkening of Harry's eyes, the flaring out his magic showed his reaction as he spoke, "Press forward; when it looks like they're bulking up on offence push forward, it's a bluff. Those types are particularly weak against fire, there's one or two who will be healed but a wide spread Ice will take care of them all the more effectively once you've finished with the others." He ordered her as he whipped a Desert Eagle armed with a high grade Lightning Materia, aimed it at one of the strange mutated canines and shot it clean through the back of the head.

"Yes sir!" She barked and raced out, keeping low and skipping over the corpses of comrades and enemies alike.

The area was going into aftershocks after the dawn attack, it was now roughly 8AM maybe, Harry wasn't exactly sure, Cloud was the one with the watch not him. Right now he was wading through the chaos, collecting tags, healing those he could heal, killing those he could not, cleaning up whatever annoying monsters that may have been lurking about. It was a hard thing to do, especially when it came to the mercy killing, it was a hard lesson to learn but it was the first that any leader should learn when entering into a war.

Sometimes, you had to choose who lived and who died.

You couldn't save them all, cut your losses and work for the majority instead of the minor. He understood some of Dumbledore's philosophy in that, however, the old man had taken it too far.

'_Lessons in war I should have learned before being thrown into it face first. It's a wonder I survived this long, since first year I've been flying by the seat of my pants with my fingers crossed hoping for the best. Stupid Gryffindor Optimism._' Harry grumbled as he dispatched another one of those weird turquoise blue dragons that didn't have any wings and were usually native to the Gongagian area, he could never be bothered to learn their names, just the fact that they petrified people was enough to piss him off. It was second year all over again.

They would hit Corel soon, two weeks at most and judging by the way the troops were fighting he doubted it would take longer than a week after they arrived before he and Cloud were back in the meeting room having to put up with Palmer Junior and the President having their little pissing contests. Harry sighed as he tossed a Shield Charm over a field medic as one of the weird blue dragons started spewing bubbles that really _hurt _when they hit.

Looking around he grinned as he caught a flash of molten sunlight and cheerfully hacked his way through various monsters to reach his commanding officer.

Technically Harry could easily reach General position himself, however, if he did that no one would be able to make sure that Cloud took care of himself, Spiky haired prick was determined to either die or fight the war single handedly. The fact that he was having kittens over his childhood bestfriend running an orphanage in North Corel –one of the closest towns to the Northern Continent and therefore the enemy, hadn't helped much. Harry and Zack had thought it incredibly cute and hadn't stopped teasing him about it, until Marlene got that _Look_, the same one that Tifa had just before she hit a Limitbreak, and considering how Marlene had gained a disturbing fondness for firearms –one that he and the rest of AVALANCHE actually found bordering on cute, no one was particularly intent on finding out just _how_ good her aim was.

Hell, if she could throw bottles half as well as she could shoot then they were all in trouble.

Harry smiled, he was looking forward to seeing the kids at Tifa's when they got back, he contemplated taking them to the Gold Saucer for a ride on the gondola. He may have been a little leery of the busty brunette but he _loved_ the kids.

"Yo, General Spike, how's it hangin'?" He called as finally reached the General's defensive line; Cloud looked at him and shook his head,

"Not bad." He answered, true Cloud let down the persona of The General around him, Zack, the other experiments and AVALANCHE, but on the front lines it was difficult to even gouge a chip in it.

"You think he'll be having nasties waiting for us at the river before Cosmo?"

"Undoubtedly." The blond returned throwing a combined **Ice3** and **Lightning3** at a monster. "Tell the fourth to pull back and the third to push in from the east. Hold the line and concentrate on fire spells." He ordered to a radio technician who had taken to hovering at the centre of their protective ring, jealously guarding his haul of technology armed with a high powered Lightning Materia junctioned with a pistol Harry vaguely recalled being called the Exeter.

"Sir!" The R.T.O. immediately began to relay the General's orders as Harry summoned another scythe into his left hand and returned to the battle with a vengeance, hacking and slashing along side the blond.

They fought in silence but as the monsters began to dwindle and they began to pick through the bodies and injured that littered the planes Harry looked over at Cloud, "I'll take your place at the meeting." He stated softly, loud enough so that Cloud's enhanced hearing could catch it but quiet enough that the Chocobo lancer he was healing did not.

Harry spat to the side scowling as a stray suicidal bomb which hadn't unloaded its explosion yet drifted toward where they had left the R.T.O. and a small team in a small area of calm, "_Avada Kedavra_." He hissed throwing a fist of green death at it, watched in satisfaction as the fiery orb just fizzled out of existence. "All I'm saying is, they're going to be showing off their latest toy and with the history between you two... they're going to be expecting a fight, and they're expecting Sephi-doodles to win. This meeting is nothing more than an attempt to get you out of the way. Probably so he can take your position as General of this division, that way, they'll have more control over the most Veteran force in this conflict. And a General completely loyal to them, a puppet dancing to their tune." He mused pausing slightly to throw an Ether to Cloud who tore the cork out and drained the Mako coloured liquid that reminded Harry of metallic green shampoo or green Unicorn blood. After spending so long with ShinRa, AVALANCHE, the Turks (Let's just say he and Reno got along like a house on fire.) and the Wutaian Captains Harry had picked up on the political currents quite quickly, his abilities in pushing aside emotion to look at things objectively and in a way that no one had expected before due to his outsider status allowed him a unique insight into the power-plays and intricacies of Gaia's Governments and Politics, and the shadier sides of both. He didn't miss the ever so slight twitch of Cloud's mouth at the nickname Harry had bestowed upon the previous General and Meteor Avatar.

Through out the two years of war Harry had fought in, any nobility or morals against using Unforgivables, Dark Curses and anything and _everything_ to kill those fuckers had died a very, _very_ swift death. Morals are all well and good, but they don't much help a dead body. It's only an unfair advantage if the other guy has it and Hojo definitely had the unfair advantage, Harry was all up for evening the score.

In. _Any_. **Way**. _**Possible**_.

The anger he had nurtured through fifth year, Hojo's lab and at the atrocities he witnessed on the battle field cleared everything, all guilt all sadness, nothing remained but the anger and his mind took solace in it. The Anger gave him focus, just as the anger gave Cloud focus. The Cetra were a kind and sweet race, the way Harry had imagined Helga Hufflepuff to be like, kind and loyal and loving when things were peaceful but a vengeful, vicious and _furious_ **bitch** when at war. After all, it may take a lot to move the earth, but it took even more to stop it once she started moving. And she was anything but a push-over, the Cetra used them all to fight the war, they regulated the planet's fury, her anger, so their weapons could survive and fight.

They were essentially puppets again, and Harry hated the way they manipulated his friends. However, he could stop it, Cloud was more sensitive having been Chosen as the Holy Avatar, but Harry could counter that, block it. Throw away the pain and veils that wrapped about his friends and give them choice again, they fought because they wanted to, not because the planet forced them into. If anything, Harry understood their pain the best.

Cloud didn't say anything as he tossed the used Ether bottle away, **Fire3** arcing from his empty hand to fry a small dragon with crystal-like butterfly wings.

Harry didn't press him about it either. But he would take Cloud's place in the meeting, he knew that much, the Blond hated those meetings with ShinRa. Add to the fact that Sephiroth was going to be there...

Harry threw another _Avada_ at a stray dragon and continued to mow down monsters with little to no difficulties.

The true battles were yet to come and his blood screamed at him that the war would end soon.

One way or another.

-

"_HARRY!!_"

"_IT'S HARRY!_"

"_BIG BROTHER!!_"

"_ONIICHAN!!_"

Tifa turned, forewarned as a small congregation of blurs practically flew down the stairs of the North Corel Orphanage, she smiled as she saw the black haired diminutive Lieutenant promptly get buried under the various youngsters who had taken a liking to him, at the forefront, the two little girl's who had sounded the alarm.

"Harry, how are you?" She asked watching as the youth grinned at her, looking so much like Zack who was still deployed in the Wutai Peninsula area.

"Good, good. Even managed to force Cloud into sleeping for three hours last night, course I had to dose him with enough tranquillisers to kill a dragon and tie him down but it worked." He teased winking at her, prompting Tifa to laugh, she knew quite well how disagreeable Cloud could get if he was confined to bedrest.

She watched as Harry returned to fussing over the children and smiled, he was a lot more like Zack than anyone was willing to point out. Easy going. He was rather short, smaller than Cloud at 5'5" in height, his hair was long –roughly the same length as Vincent's just much neater and kept out of the way through means of the dark green bandana and ponytail at the back of his head. His skin was tanned from spending so much time outside, eyes a deeper and more vibrant green than Tifa had ever seen –more so than Aerith or Sephiroth's or the triplets. He wore plain SOLDIER issue trousers, gun-holsters slung on both sides and a small item pack at the small of his back with heavy steel-toe-capped boots armed with poisoned blades in the toes and heels protecting his feet (Tifa had noticed when they were training him in hand to hand that Harry preferred to use his legs in a fight.), a white wife-beater under a partially open black and red trimmed shirt with the sleeves torn off, he had attained a few interesting tattoos as well. A black snake wrapped around his right wrist, the arm that was bitten by the Basilisk in his second year, a silver badger on his right wrist in memory of Cedric Diggory and the silver knife used to resurrect Voldemort; a white and pink lily curled on the left side of his neck, a tribute to his mother who sacrificed herself to save him and the protective magic that ran through his blood. On his back rested a large picture of a set of phoenix wings drawn in reds, golds and oranges, a true work of art, and right over his heart, a paw-print. Harry told her once that the paw print over his heart was in memory of his godfather, Sirius. Those tattoos had hurt like a bitch to get done but as soon as it was finished the pain vanished and he had to concentrate like mad with his magic to make sure the Mako enhancements on his body didn't heal away the ink or the pictures. Now they were a permanent fixture of his body, the ink and picture would regenerate along with the skin should he ever have an injury.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" She asked, after-all, she was a barmaid.

"Sure, you got any of that Winter Mead you were serving last spring?" He asked eagerly as the children began to drift back upstairs, leaving the bar-patrons either chuckling at them or shaking their heads.

"I keep a bottle just for you." Tifa returned with a sly grin, none of the General's could get drunk due to their Mako enhancements so they tended to ask for drinks that tasted better, regardless of their alcohol content. Tifa kept several bottles of various drinks in the back especially for the SOLDIERs with enhancements. "Gimme a sec, I'll go and get it." And she vanished.

"And how are you today Princess?" The black haired male asked leaning against the bar and winking at Marlene, the brown eyed young woman giving him a smirk and condescending look,

"A mite sight better than you Sinclair." She retorted, "Have you even bathed yet?" She asked, Harry grinned turning against the counter and craning his head backwards to look at her with an endearing smile on his face,

"What? And not come and see my Princess as soon as possible?" He cooed, "I didn't think my heart could handle the strain of our separation, your beauty a siren's song I could not resist, I found my feet leading me to this castle of liquor and children's laughter to your side my Princess." He professed, somehow managing to keep an entirely straight face throughout the whole display, unlike the subject of his 'affections' who had dissolved into giggling by the words '_siren's song_'.

Tifa chuckled as she resurfaced, "Do I need to spray you with the hose?" She asked lightly, Harry grinned,

"Not at all my good Lady of the Golden Ale." He teased, Marlene threw a dishcloth at him,

"Take your liquor and go you psychopath. And you'd better say hi to everyone for me!" She warned, Harry bowed with a flourish as he accepted the bottles from Tifa,

"I shall stick my tongue down Denzel's throat especially for you." He told her and dodged to the side as an empty glass narrowly missed his head, "Kidding!" He called racing out of the bar before Marlene could think of reaching for that lovely pistol he gave her for her last birthday.

The bar maid shook her head as she watched him depart as Marlene growled possessively under her breath –yet incapable of hiding the fond smile on her lips, Tifa knew that Harry was somewhat uncomfortable around her and Barret as opposed to the others but she was glad Harry was working as Cloud's Lieutenant; it would be good for her childhood friend. Cloud needed to know that there were people who didn't fear him no matter how bloody and ruthless the war got, someone who could and would follow him into hell and not have to worry about coming back out dragging another dead body. Harry somehow always managed to come back alive, right on his heels commenting on how boring the scenery was and how his favourite uniform was covered with mud, completely ignoring the fact that he was almost black with blood from head to foot, his stunning green eyes the only visible spots of colour upon him. It would do Cloud good to know that no matter how tough things got, there was always at least one person whom he could tell all and not expect a reprimand from, someone aside from Zack, he could tell all to. The green eyed youth may have been mostly socially inept when he first arrived, combat useless, only knowing enough to survive –his instincts and reflexes damn well putting Cloud, Vincent's and Yuffie's to shame, but he seemed to understand Cloud's position intimately well. As if the same thing had been demanded of him.

As if someone had expected him to win a war by himself.

-

Harry chuckled from where he had situated himself on a few crates with his small horde of Winter Mead, green eyes watching the hustle and bustle of the people of Corel. People watching had become a habit of his, ever since he first arrived he thought it would have been useful to just observe everyone and everything and find out how different things were. They were way different; yet so similar it was like he was still on earth.

The black haired male tore out the cork with his teeth and spat it to the side, taking a long drought of the liquid he sighed happily and smacked his lips, watching as a group of giggling R.T.O.'s passed, obviously on leave judging by the fact they weren't in uniform and were heading in the direction of the Northern District where the Air-tram to the Golden Saucer was docked.

The black haired male leaned forwards as he caught sight of a distinctive flash of vermillion before he grinned in recognition, "_Oi Reno! You douche bag reject!!_" he bellowed bringing various shocked looks from those around him before they recognised the diminutive lieutenant, shook their heads and carried on their daily work, he was well known for this sort of behaviour.

The afore mentioned Turk spun in place and grinned catching sight of the black haired male on top of the crates before he bounced over, Rude following a little more sedately in his wake. "Harry! You porcupine reject, how are you?" He demanded climbing up to his side, "Screw that, is that Tifa's Winter Mead?" He demanded, eyes locking with the bottle and grabbing it before Harry could answer and downing at least a third of it.

"Oi! I had to do some serious flirting for that! Give it!" The green eyed male demanded snatching it out of Reno's fingers mid-swallow causing the red head to choke on what was in his mouth.

"Marly shoot you for it?" He croaked once his coughing fit was over, Harry shook his head swallowing a mouthful of Mead,

"No, threw a glass at me when I teased her about tonguing Denzel though." He added with a cheerful waggle of his eyebrows, Reno snorted with laughter,

"Oh, that'd get her hopping. You'd better not though, she knows where you sleep and at the moment you're the only thing keeping his Great General Dumbass from officially going out of his little blond head." Harry smacked the red head lightly,

"Watch it, Zack might take offence that his little brother did what he couldn't." He warned but Reno could see the other meaning in his words: _It's not just me you retard and shut up about what you don't know about_. "You going to the meeting tomorrow?" he asked handing the bottle to the usually silent Rude who gratefully took several swigs.

"Yup. Left Elena and Tsang at Gongaia base to hold the pass, frankly I just don't think Tsang's ready to face off with Sephiroth and Elena just can't stand Palmer the second."

"Keeps staring at her chest and ignoring everything she says huh?"

"Yup."

"I dare him to try it with Tifa."

Reno fell off the crate laughing.

-

It had been a bad one alright.

Harry sighed as he checked over the water in his canteen before handing it to Cloud who was still shaking murmuring denials to himself, blue eyes oddly unfocused as his skinny frame trembled. Too skinny. Harry sighed, he was probably even skinnier than his commanding officer but Harry knew that it was a product of his entire upbringing. Cloud, his skinniness was due to _not eating_. The stubborn prat, git belonged in Gryffindor the stubborn bastard.

"Here. Water." Harry declared soothingly as he placed a hand on Cloud's shoulder, his knuckles rising to graze the blond's forehead in a familiar gesture frowning slightly when he felt the fever that was lurking beneath the surface. With nightmares like theirs, reflexes like theirs and the strength to shatter Materia orbs with their bare hands, they had to be careful not to accidentally kill each other. Especially when half out of it due to memories surfacing of Hojo's lab some-when during the dead of night. Cloud and Harry had adjacent rooms so Harry could always hear when his superior officer had a nightmare and vice versa for him, usually Zack roomed on the other side of the corridor so he could hear both of them if they kicked off. The dread-locked clone SOLDIER took his duties of big brother very seriously, at first it had suffocated Harry but he eventually grew used to it. Until Zack saw fit to try and give him the talk on the birds and bees when he caught sight of several R.T.O.s giggling and eyeing his 'younger brother' up in the mess hall while he tried to convince Cloud to eat something. Harry had enlisted the help of General Yuffie Kisaragi to prank the black haired SOLDIER in revenge and she had only been too willing.

"Calm down Spike. Shh, the lab is over, you'll never go back. Me an' Zack'll never let that happen." Harry murmured watching as Cloud swallowed the water, some coherency coming back into his eyes. Harry sighed and got to his feet, stretching his legs, "Go back to sleep Spike. I'll deal with the ShinRa snobs tomorrow, you, get some sleep and _eat something_. Merlin help you if I come back and you haven't eaten something." Harry warned as Cloud watched him leave, shaking his head with a small grateful smile as he flopped back on his bed palette.

Outside Harry sighed rubbing tiredly at his face leaning against the wall with a sigh, they needed a _break_. Cloud most of all, his nightmares had been picking up in pace again, one almost every night, it was like the beginning of his summer with the Dursleys' before being sent here, pressing an ear against the door just to double check that the great General Pillock had indeed gone back to bed instead of trying to climb out of the window and make his way back to the meeting room (Stubborn bastard had done it a few times before, it took repeated threats from both Harry and Zack with a set of handcuffs before the blond took the hint and decided to confine himself to his bed at night.) Harry leaned back and rolled his eyes.

"Harry? What the hell are you doin' out here this late?" The black haired male rubbed at his face again, looking over at Cid as he trudged over, dufflebag slung over one shoulder, unlit cigarette hanging from his lips and dark smudges under his eyes.

"Nightmare." He said by means of explanation, jerking his head at Cloud's door. "I'm taking his place tomorrow. How are you?" He asked walking forward and taking the dufflebag from Cid as the older man sighed, likewise rubbing at his face –a habit that Harry had picked up from him when he was tired.

"Tired. Those fuckin' ShinRa pillocks, think they can use the Highwind as their personal transportation." He complained bitterly as they trudged down the hall toward the pilot's room, they all had rooms on the same floor to save messengers having to run from room to room when all the Generals and other high-ranking officers were needed in an emergency. Cid and Barret had rooms at the far end of the hall opposite each other, beside their rooms on the inside was Vincent and Yuffie opposite one another, beside them was an empty room on Yuffie's side and beside Vincent was Nanaki's room –just in case he was in North Corel for an unforeseeable amount of time. Beside the empty room and Nanaki's was Harry's and Zack's with Cloud's being beside Harry's and Zack's being across the corridor from Cloud's, Reeve had a room on the other side of Cloud but he was hardly ever there so it was treated as another empty where as whenever Takao was in the area she would room with Harry, Peru hated returning to Corel and avoided it like it was Hojo's lab. There were a few other rooms on the other side of Cloud and Reeve but they were for people who were non-combatants, i.e. ShinRa personnel or the President and his Cabinet figuring that they would be safest while around the Generals and the best fighters on the planet.

Harry shook his head as Cid began to unlock the door to his room, "How's Shera?" He asked suddenly.

Harry liked Shera, unlike the other scientists and doctors, she was always warm, a bit timid but always kind. She sort of reminded him of an older and feminine Neville, which made him feel at home, regardless of when she was poking him with needles, if anything, Shera Highwind and her assistant Medic Laura Kennedy were the only doctors the '_Holy Pantheon_' of Generals allowed anywhere near them. They all hated doctors, labs and needles. Shera and Laura's warmth were the only things that allowed them to get near them.

The _Holy Pantheon_ of course being compromised of mostly the AVALANCHE fighters and experiments. Cloud and Zack, _The_ legendary Generals, with Harry just as renowned, if not more feared, as they themselves; Cid Highwind and his Lieutenant Halley Lasant, technically only Colonel and lieutenant Colonel, but unceremoniously dubbed the Generals of the Sky; _Shogun_ Yuffie Kisaragi of the Wutai Army and her cohort (And wasn't that relationship a surprise!) Already an honorary General in his own right, Vincent Valentine, a 'retired' Turk; Peru the Chocobo Lancers' _Goddess_, or so it seemed. It seemed as if AVALANCHE would be the ones to win the war, the save the world... a third... a fourth time.

Cloud, Zack, Tifa, Barret, Nanaki, Yuffie, Vincent, Reeve, Cid, Halley, Reno, Rude, Tsang, Elena, Harry, Ryuu –Yuffie's lieutenant, Takao, Peru, Donovan –Zack's lieutenant, Shera, Rufus ShinRa, Denzel –who'd sneaked into the army and joined up with the Chocobo Lancers, Marlene... they were all fighting in different ways, fighting for their lives, fighting for the planet. And everyone expected them to win; they placed their hopes upon them.

Some people are born great; some have greatness thrust upon them. Looking back on that quote by Teddy Roosevelt –probably the only president of America Harry remembered aside from Old Honest Abe, he couldn't help but think that greatness sucked like a grenade up the ass. A grenade without a pin.

"She's err..." Cid trailed off awkwardly as Harry kicked the door shut behind him as Cid flopped onto the bed as the black haired Lieutenant General began unpacking his belongings, taking out the numerous empty cigarette packets and binning them before placing the half-full lighter and single full packet of cigarettes on the table within easy reach of Cid when he first rolled out of bed and demanded a fag. Which he abruptly did, "She's pregnant." He finally admitted, striking up a cigarette. Harry nodded,

"Bad timing. But wonderful news." He added with a wild grin, "I'll make sure to learn how to knit some-shit for the little brat."

Amidst their small group there was very little privacy, Cloud still tried to close himself off from everyone, especially the AVALANCHE crowd, determined not to get them hurt for what he deemed his own 'stupidity'. Harry had given him a three hour black eye that not even mako could fix for that.

If anything, both Harry AND Zack were responsible for keeping the whole group together, and with Palmer Junior sniffing around armed with Scarlet and other ShinRa executives who had a vendetta against them, neither SOLDIER nor Boy-Who-Lived wanted them to have _any_ attempt at a leeway.

Harry didn't know if he was going to be able to get back home, he wasn't even certain that he would have a home to get back to, let alone keeping this one from self-combusting and dying. To tell the truth, even if there was a way to get back home, he wasn't sure whether or not he would want to take it, especially after the way everyone had sold him down the river and neglected to inform him there was a hole in his raft. The black haired male yanked out a clean pair of Cid's jeans as the blond took a deep drag on his death stick, a worried frown creasing his face at the thought of his wife and unborn child, he didn't want them to be born in this year of chaos and death, Harry glanced over at him and smiled reassuringly, the war would end before Shera's child was born, he knew that. Turning back to the jeans Harry folded them up, his lips curling in a silent snarl as he thought dark thoughts about Hojo, JENOVA... Voldemort.

Where did these jerk-offs get the idea that they're gods?

What made them think that they had the right to do the things they did?

Harry sighed, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow Old Man. I may need your help to drag Cloud away from where-ever it is that he's taken to lurking lately so he can eat some damn breakfast."

Cid chuckled, it was a common joke around AVALANCHE that whenever Zack wasn't around, Harry was Cloud's Baby-sitter; they weren't far from the truth either. Not that they really cared much, if anyone needed taking care of it was the spiky haired imbecile. "Sure Kid. See ya."

"Night." Harry grunted shutting the door behind him and plodding back to his own room, exchanging a weary yet understanding smile with Halley Lesant, Cid's Second in Command and one of the best damn pilots that ShinRa had ever seen, as she staggered toward the room she shared with her fiancée Reno of the Turks. They were still trying to figure out how that one happened.

Closing his bedroom door the black haired youth flopped onto his bed, too tired to bother with Occlumency, balled himself in the blankets and nuzzled into his pillow as oblivion set in.

Harry dreamed of home.

-

_A small rural muggle area, filthy creatures, fires and screaming, sobbing and laughing, the stink of blood –how he revelled in it, and the bitter tang of smoke that made his throat ache and burn._

_He shuddered in horror filled recognition. Dammit! The _Scar Link_ was still active? Even at __this__ distance!?_

_Lady magic, you _**bitch**

-

"Kiddo! Wake up, s'ok Harry, calm down Lil' Bit." Soothed a deep rumbled voice as Harry slowly returned to consciousness.

The black haired youth instantly recognised the voice and scent of his '_Oniichan_' and latched onto the dread-locked SOLDIER's unwashed uniform, shivering, he never noticed that the ominous pain in his head, was not originating from his scar.

Zack sighed rubbing circles across his younger brother's back; he cradled the scrawny 19-year-old closely and inhaled the scent of his hair. "Shhh... s'ok Lil'Bit, s'ok."

If all he could do was drive away the nightmares then that was what he would do. Anything to help.

-

**POLL**

Right, I've had a lot of reviews questioning the pairings. Let me just say my Cloud/Sephiroth OTP inner fangirl has died a most messy death at the hands of my Cloud/Squall(Leon) Inner fangirl. Since Leon isn't IN this my Cloud/Seph fangirl is surfacing again. So, I leave this up to my beloved readers, since I could go any-which-way because I'm just awesome like that. (Pfft, yeah right.)

Cloud / Harry

Cloud / Sephiroth

Harry / Draco

Tifa / Reeve

Hermione / Reeve (Ron will still be alive.)

Hermione / Ron

Harry / OC (Please specify gender)

Harry / No one

**Polling will be finished by the time I post the sixth chapter and will also contain the results. Until then, I shall just outrageously hint at various pairings 8D**

-

**Yeah. Random ending but I needed to get it out of the way because everything will be grouped together in the next chapter. This is when everything will **_really_** kick off. XDD**

**Yeah and Sephiroth will show up too. Yeah, I recently found out what Zack's real last name is: Fair. Zackary Fair. It so does not suit him. According to Nomura it's in opposition to Cloud Strife, (Word play worthy of Rowling don't you think? –snerk-) but I think I'll be sticking with Sinclair.**

**(Though I have to admit, Harry looks more like Zack and Aerith's son than anything. I mean, green eyes, wild black hair, pale skin?)**

**Review pleasums!**

Araceil


	5. Chapter 5

**IMPORTANT NOTE, PLEASE READ!** The votes have been cast and it was overwhelmingly in the favour of Cloud/Harry. _HOWEVER!!!_ Some of you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I will be turning this into Porn at a later date. I assure you, this will _not_ be happening. It will be subtle. Very subtle so that each of you readers can take the pairing any which way you wish, brothers/bestfriends/lovers. I'm not all that fussed, because quite frankly, both Cloud and Harry have more important things to worry about like a war. There may be slash with some other characters but it will mostly be background. If you have complaints, kindly sign in to give them, that way I can reply to you and settle whatever issues you may have, I would rather not air my dirty laundry here for all to see. Thank you for reading.

-

**BEYOND THE EMERALD DAWN**

**-**

**CHAPTER FIVE**

-

"Oh no! Please Mr General Sir! Please don't rip my arms off and shove them down my throat in a desperate attempt to silence my irritating mincy, bitchy whining!"

Zack coughed violently into his paper-cup of coffee (Enhanced sneakily with a _lot_ of powdered Hypers.) hastily biting on his lower lip to hide the huge grin that was threatening to split his face as his advanced hearing caught the tail end of his 'younger brother's' too-quiet mutterings as he doodled on one of the 'important' documents Palmer Junior has given to him for Cloud. Harry had read through it, thought about it, read it through again and then promptly started to draw a number of little comics featuring Richard Palmer getting brutally murdered by Cloud, Scarlet and Rufus engaging in various sexual acts under the table, Cid and Reno arguing over cigarette brands while Reeve in the foreground tossed back aspirin like they were Smarties only to get squished into a human sandwich by Harry and Zack once he was in a drug induced Happy Place.

Needless to say, anyone with enhancements in the room was finding it difficult to keep a straight face as they heard Harry narrating his comics too softly for any of the board members to hear properly. (Reeve had a very good idea what was happening, Harry usually bounded over to show him the drawings like an excited child. He had to admit he found them very amusing.)

"Lieutenant!" Palmer barked from the other side of the room, Harry held up a hand,

"Gimme a sec!" he called as he put the finishing touches onto the aspirin bottle in Reeve's hand before looking up, "Yah?"

"Where's Strife?" The Blond demanded, his brown eyes narrowing on the dark haired Lieutenant as he leaned back with a grin,

"He should be eatin' breakfast, then again, stubborn pillock's probably in the War Room pouring over maps and old R.T.O. reports." Was the ever-so blasé reply.

Palmer reddened violently, that colour couldn't have been good for his blood pressure, Harry thought absently as he watched the older man swell in anger. Personally Harry likened it to bloating of his Aunt Marge in his Third Year but the blond was just too prissy for that. But it would be funny to see him turn into one of those long thin balloons they use to make animals at children's parties as opposed to the round ones they usually have. A few years ago he would have been angry, resigned, slightly intimidated at the sight of the man's face, knowing that he was supposedly a superior officer. But... Harry didn't care any more. It was rather amusing, no one in the room _cared_ at all about this pathetic example of the human race.

Whatever Palmer jr had been about to splutter out was rather beheaded when one of the tenser members of AVALANCHE asked the billion Gil question.

"Where is _that Bastard_?" growled the familiar voice of Barret Wallace, the gunarmed commander of the Corel Security forces was practically frothing at the mouth at the thought of one of his most hated and feared enemies out and about again, _alive_. Barret did not want Sephiroth any where near Corel, North, South, East or West. He wanted him gone and away from Marlene, AVALANCHE, his city and his people. He didn't want the silver haired male anywhere _near_ Cloud in the slightest.

Reeve sighed from where he was leaning against the large pane of glass that functioned as a window over 80 percent of South Corel as he looked over the room. "Sephiroth is being escorted through the underground mining tunnels from the medical facility on the East side; he should already be in the lift on his way up here." The tired looking official explained looking a trifle ill at the prospect of coming face to face with the white haired man instead of through the Prank-Happy cat Cait Sith.

All the Generals _should_ be present for this little '_meet and greet_' thing that Palmer had planned, everyone except the main attraction, _The_ General, Cloud Strife. Harry had taken his spot after demanding that the blond use the day to take care of himself, get some sleep and for Merlin's sake, _eat something! _As such, he was present as the only Lieutenant General there save Halley Lesant, who was technically a Lieutenant Colonel to Cid whom was sat beside the surprisingly tall brunette pilot. Zack thought it would be a good idea to have more than one familiar face for Sephiroth to see when he walked in and both Zack, Reno, Halley, Rude and Tsang used to play cards together in the airhanger, occasionally Zack would get Sephiroth to join in too back before the Nibelheim incident. Halley was determined to get that 30 gil Seph owed her from their last game. If only to remind him that there were no hard feelings between them and that _nothing_ had changed, except maybe now she wouldn't flirt with him non-stop, despite the many times he told her he was _gay_.

The board table was very long, something which everyone was very grateful for as with the AVALANCHE members, Turks and ShinRa board members, the tensions were running high along with some peoples tempers. Along the right side of the table furthest away from the door sat Harry, beside him was Zack, then Halley, Cid, Tifa, Barret and lastly an empty seat which everyone assumed would be taken by Cloud –who was obviously a no-show. Behind them, Vincent was leaning against the wall with Nanaki beside him, sat on his haunches giving the room a calm level-golden stare with Takao curled up at his side, peaceably unconcerned. Opposite the seated AVALANCHE members was Rufus, Scarlet, Reno –who had his feet up on the table prompting Scarlet's hand to twitch toward her gun every now and again. Rude had opted to do a Vincent and lean against the wall so he could move faster if anyone present should prove to be a threat.

Barret began to twitch his fingers caressing his gun arm rather spastically, obviously a product of stress at the thought of the man who almost destroyed a planet entering into the same room. Harry sighed and flicked a finger in Barret's direction, applying a sticking charm to his chair and to some of the tigger mechanisms in his gun, knowing the hotheaded black man; he would start trying an assassination attempt the moment Whitey-chan stepped into the room. Something which neither Harry nor Zack were about to allow, Halley would have a hissy fit too.

"Barret, honey, calm down. We need _Shiroi-chan_ to be in one piece if he's to have any attempt as saving our goddamn planet." Harry pointed out his voice hardening from the syrupy sweet tone he used to start into a dark growl as he glared at Barret. He never had gotten along with the black man or Tifa, there was just something about them that reminded him too closely of Ron and Hermione, Tifa certainly wasn't a know-it-all but there was still a vibe about her that made Harry edgy, as for Barret, he wasn't jealous but he was certainly overprotective and short tempered and close-minded enough to do Ron proud. No. Stop, stop thinking about them, they aren't part of your life any more. Harry took a deep breath and expelled those thoughts from his mind with a touch of Occlumency and looked up at the door snicked open and Yuffie's Lieutenant General stepped in, bowing formally, a hand resting across his chest in a Wutaian salute.

"General Ma'am." He greeted softly to the older woman who nodded regally toward the red head. "President sir, mission complete. General Sephiroth sir, this way please."

The red head stepped aside to allow the _much_ taller white haired male into the room, Sephiroth looked almost exactly the same as the last time Zack had seen him, the only difference any of the AVALANCHE members saw was that his eyes were a light jade green colour, almost the same shade as an apple, his pupils were round instead of the feline or reptilian slit they once were when under JENOVA's control.

The reaction was near instantaneous, everyone in AVALANCHE and the Turks went stiff, Halley however reacted with her usual lack of tact or common sense:

"You still owe me 30 Gil White-ass. Pay me later." She declared eyeing him coolly with the same expression that practically declared to Zack that the moment there were no ShinRa eyes watching them, she would be all over Sephiroth like a rash to see if he was alright. If was just the sort of girl she was, in front of the higher-ups she was a bitch, around everyone else she was like a female version of Zack and Cid combined –without the chain-smoking.

Sephiroth nodded, "And you owe me 40 Gil. Pay me later." He declared smoothly prompting a laugh from the woman as she leaned back in her seat, shooting Reno a smirk that had his blue eyes twinkling like crazy as a smirk of his own threatened to split his face.

"ENOUGH!" Richard Palmer shouted, face still red from Harry's callous treatment of him earlier, as he tried to claw some sort of attention toward himself.

Sephiroth inclined his head slightly, face icy-blank, he nodded politely to the Lieutenant General who had escorted him in, Zack arching an eyebrow as he caught the slight touch of a smile hidden within his friend's apple eyes. Apparently the diminutive Wutaian had managed to crack the shell of the Ice prince enough for Seph to actually take a liking to him. The red head nodded, everything about him impassive, damn that was a good poker face, as he closed the door behind him and moved to stand behind Yuffie who smiled brightly at him, prompting an ever so slight glint of amusement in the male's eyes.

Reeve was the one who bit the bullet first.

"General Sephiroth, I would say welcome but I doubt you would believe the sincerity of my words after reading the reports of... well everything since the Nibelheim mission." The black haired male began with a slightly pained expression upon his face. "Have you familiarised yourself with the records of this war?"

Sephiroth nodded, "Yes. I must say I was surprised to hear of Wutai's involvement. Godo was not the type of man to forgive or forget."

Yuffie snorted, "He isn't." She stated. "Father has nothing to do with Wutai's involvement in this war." The Wutaian warrior Princess declared, slate grey/green eyes narrowing upon Richard Palmer, well aware of his racism and distain for her and Wutai. The woman broke off and returned to staring Sephiroth down. "You've read the mission files, we have no choice. We're still losing. We are not so stupid that we can't see when we need to band together if the human race is to survive on this Cetra Forsaken mudball."

Harry snorted scowling out of the window, "You can say that again. Bastards." He growled referring to the Cetra.

"Indeed." Sephiroth mused glancing at Harry with no small amount of curiosity and bemusement.

"If we can get to the point of this meeting gentlemen." Palmer bit out, obviously trying his hardest to reign in his temper, everyone nodded and returned to their official capacities, Harry continued drawing but could feel Zack fidgeting ever so slightly, his leg practically vibrating under the table.

"Alright, we're met Mr Tall-Dark-And-Vitamin-D-Deficient," Yuffie, Zack and Halley giggled at Harry's blasé words while Sephiroth merely arched an eyebrow in bemusement, "Why don't you tell us exactly why you've summoned us away from the Front Lines in this dangerous time of war."

Palmer blustered, muttering under his breath about Harry's impunity and arrogance reminding the black haired Lieutenant of Minister Fudge from way back in the day of when he used to be on Earth, he suppressed the inane urge to start laughing in the blond's bucktoothed face (though not as pronounced as his father's dentistry issues, thank Merlin.)

"General Sephiroth will be joining you at the Front lines, as such, Mr Palmer believed it prudent to introduce you so no one attacked him under a misguided belief that Hojo had somehow managed to clone the man who you once fought against and set him loose." Rufus ShinRa broke in smoothly, regarding each of those present on the other side of the long meeting table, pointedly ignoring Palmer's simpering on his left, gauging each other reactions and body language.

"Which is why Lieutenant General Sinclair will be transferred under General Sephiroth's command." Palmer abruptly interrupted, bringing startled, horrified and incredulous looks from those assembled, along with a sharp glare from the Sinclair brothers, Valentine, Reno and Rufus whom had not been informed of such a transfer and was now more than slightly pissed off that someone was attempting to steal power from right under him. It may have been true to ShinRa style but that was one thing that Rufus was trying to end.

"Strife already has two Lieutenant Generals, he has no need for two. Sinclair knows the terrain better than Lau and the troops will listen to him until they respect General Sephiroth." Palmer pointed out, true, they were very valid points, but that still didn't change the main shadowed objective, tear down Strife's support from the inside. Remove the linchpins and the whole thing will fall apart. Harry was currently preventing the General from slipping into depression and insanity along with Zack and a few other people from AVALANCHE. Palmer was trying to isolate him, destroy him. The afore mentioned blond obviously never noticed Harry's eyes darkening nor the slight gleam of homicidal desires enter into Zack's.

"No."

"W-What!?" The blond spluttered at the cold refusal. Rufus began to rub at his temples as Reeve flopped into the seat beside him muttering about Advil, alas, another one of the volatile Palmer-Sinclair spats that had become a more common betting sport than even the Chocobo races of the Golden Saucer once were. Sinclair was the crowd favourite and guaranteed win.

"I am not moving from General Strife's command. No offence to General Sephiroth, I'm sure he's an excellent combatant and superior officer from what my brother had told me, but I am _not_ going anywhere. My loyalty is to Cloud, first and foremost, ShinRa is only a secondary footnote at best. Deal with it."

"How sweet." Palmer sneered,

Harry bared his teeth in a twisted grin, "Isn't it just."

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Rufus broke in before it dissolved into fisty-cuffs, he and the Turks were some of the few that knew of Harry's origins and therefore his Gryffindor Nature of solving problems with fists instead of the ShinRa/Slytherin approach of subterfuge. "Since we're all here, we may as well go over the current state of affairs. General Kisaragi, General Sinclair, how goes events on the Wutai front?"

Yuffie got to her feet and leaned over the large map that was plastered to the table under a pane of glass –due to their habit of scribbling on it with dry-wipe markers, which she demonstrated by pulling one out of somewhere Rufus really didn't want to contemplate.

"We've moved the majority of the population to the South-East encampment, as many non-combatants as possible; the current capitol is finally being used to its Military maximum." She explained marking off the area in which the citizens of Wutai had been moved. Shooting a glare at ShinRa as they had been the ones to refuse the assistance in moving the people, claiming it was a waste of resources in dangerous times when they needed everything they could get, Yuffie knew it but it didn't lessen any of the resentful feelings that bubbled within her. "Currently both Zack and I have forces stretched out across the peninsula," She explained streaking a thick red line in a curve following the North and Western front of the peninsula. "My father has Leviathan patrolling the waters, taking care of anything that Hojo may send at us through the water, so far three Half-Spawn have been taken down. Much less than last year, I believe that Hojo is either running out of resources, or he's pooling what he has for something big."

"Something big." Sephiroth stated, drawing all attention to him, "It's not his style to just keep pounding away at any resistance. If the first three or four hits don't work-"

"He draws back and gathers what he has left for the deciding blow. The winning one." Harry broke in, his voice absent, eyes distant as memories from the lab began to surface; Hojo's combat skills greatly resembled his torture techniques. Small scale attacks to gauge the opponents strength, two large scale ones that if they don't work, resources get pooled and then he completely obliterates what stands between him.

"Yes." The white haired male committed, his eyes strangely intent on the younger of the Sinclair brothers, Zack had never mentioned having siblings, in fact, he had once expressed a wish to have them when he first took a young cadet under his wing, dimly, Sephiroth remembered catching sight of his Lieutenant beside someone with the brightest hair he had ever seen. The General gave Zack a sharp look indicating that they would be taking later, Zack simply arched an eyebrow and smirked to himself as he got to his feet.

"From what I've got from my R.T.O. contact, the level of attacks has been easing up on all the frontlines save the Rocket-North Corel Plains area. In fact, the level of combat seemed to be increasing in specific the Rocket area. Either Hojo's attempting to overwhelm what forces we have there or he's preparing for an even larger scale strike by moving all his forces to the places in question." He explained pointing to each pertinent location.

"Or it's a serious case of misdirection." Vincent intoned, voicing a possibility no one wanted to contemplate.

-

There was something fishy about the Jenova records in Harry opinion.

Everything about Jenova was fishy to him as a matter of fact. The black haired Lieutenant General was currently seated in his favourite little café in the South Corel District, his laptop in front of him, a mug of sweet hot chocolate with marshmallows –somewhat gooey from sitting too long in the hot liquid, on his left and a plate with a cinnamon Danish on his right.

He was hacking into ShinRa. Reno would have been so proud of him.

"Harry, kiddo, what cha doin'?" Zack asked brightly plunking himself down beside his younger brother, making a grab for the cinnamon Danish on his right only to have the cake-fork narrowly miss his hand and have the shorter black haired male calmly shove the whole thing in his mouth, chewing with little difficulty and swallowing it whole. Much to Zack's morbid fascination and the newly arrived Sephiroth's great disgust.

"Hacking ShinRa files." Harry explained, licking pastry crumbs from his lips, not bothering to look at the black haired male as his fingers fairly flew across the keyboard.

Zack chuckled gesturing to the waitress for his usual, "Reno would be so proud." He crowed with pride. Harry merely smirked slightly,

"Any particular reason why you're here? I thought you preferred Tifa's Seventh Heaven for you lunch."

"Seph was getting' antsy about you, he knew you weren't my brother and let's be honest, anyone with enhancements like his can tell you're not quite all right. Claims you have a similar feeling about you as Jenova." Zack explained as the waitress returned with his Latte and three double chocolate chip muffins. Harry paused, his fingers hovering slightly as he looked sharply at Zack and then to Sephiroth.

"'_Similar feeling_'? Care to elaborate General?" He asked sharply, causing Sephiroth to bristle slightly at the unspoken hostility/threat in the younger male's voice.

"You have the same feeling about you as she did. Only not as... twisted. Darker, your feeling isn't as domineering as hers was, it is strong and very confident, almost compelling but you are careful about it. You exert a conscious control over it to ensure you do not take control over those around you." Sephiroth explained while Harry's eyes widened fractionally.

He had learned that as his magic grew he could pressure some people to his will, much like Dumbledore had done by spreading his Legilimency influence and magic through large crowds of people, tugging on their emotions. Harry had _never_ even attempted it; he refused to tear away people's free will like that. But that wasn't what had him going; he too had noticed that Jenova felt similar in a way to him, similar but not there. Her power was merely a more potent version of Voldemort's.

Harry jerked in horror as he jumped to his feet, "Of course." He breathed, "The stone, Merlin, oh god! _Merlin!_" Harry exclaimed before taking off at a run, he needed to speak to Vincent. _Now._

Sephiroth and Zack exchanged looks, "What was that about?" Sephiroth demanded, Zack shrugged, muffin wrapper dangling from between his teeth.

"Haven't a clue." He stated before snagging Harry's hot chocolate and taking a swing, "Blegh! Too sweet." He complained pulling a face at the marshmallows that had melted into the chocolaty beverage.

Sephiroth's eyebrow arched.

-

"Yes, it was about 39 –possibly 40-years-ago that Gast found Jenova."

Harry paced up and down the small Wutaian garden set up at a small restaurant in the North, Yuffie's Lieutenant had family who owned it and allowed her and her subordinates to use the garden to just sit back and relax. Which was where he found Yuffie, Vincent and Ryuu, the Ninja General comfortably nestled into Vincent's lap as he read to her in her native language, Ryuu sat a little further away with his back to them looking over the pond so as not to intrude upon their peace.

The younger red head took his duties toward his Princess very seriously; he was usually silent and had a way of fading into the background so as not to disrupt the Lady Princess's happiness. In a way, Harry wished that Ryuu had been in the Order acting as his guard back on earth, the red head was deadly, but extremely unobtrusive, which was probably why Vincent was comfortable enough with his presence to be so intimate with Yuffie.

When Harry had burst into the garden all three were instantly on their feet and the red head had already situated himself in front of Vincent and Yuffie who were distance attackers, sword half drawn, eyes narrowed intently before he recognised his fellow Lieutenant and bowed formerly, sheathing his sword and retreating back to his position in front of the water.

Vincent frowned curiously, "Why are you asking about Jenova now?" He pondered while Yuffie merely remained silent, leaning against him and watching the other boy whom was only a few years younger than herself.

"Something Sephiroth said, it got me thinking. Jenova, there's something about her that just... it tastes familiar. I'd noticed it before but I just didn't know what to make of it until he told me that I felt similar to her, his enhancements give him the ability to sense Lifestream much in the same way you, me, Cloud and a few of the others can. He could sense the difference between myself and others, said I felt similar. It got me thinking,

"Voldemort, the man who sent me here, said that a long time ago criminals and Dark Witches and Wizards were banished from our planet in much the same way I was. I think Jenova may have been a Dark witch far more powerful and dangerous than Voldemort or Grindelwald ever were. It would explain why Jenova feels so familiar to me; I've been exposed to Voldemort's Magic since I was a child, which can also account for why Sephiroth noticed the similarities between us and why I can block the Cetra from torturing Cloud. My magic is much heavier than their influence and I can block them out by simply existing." Harry theorised. "She has always taken a strong interest in me whenever we were brought into contact at Hojo's lab, she was always asking about my origins, I think she knows where I'm from and... and I still have a link to my old planet. The prophesy or the Scar link. Either way, the path is still open between Gaia and Earth. If Jenova managed to ooze herself to Earth she can absorb the ambient magic and mako there and return here to finish her work."

"Could we use this to our advantage?" Yuffie asked, frowning, this certainly put a new spin on things. Jenova was from Harry's world and it was her magic that allowed her to control Sephiroth and poison Aerith's mother and all those poor people Hojo had been experimenting on. No wonder Cloud was out of his little blond head, he was fighting battles on all fronts, the physical and the mental. The dampening affect Chaos had on Vincent was probably the only thing preventing the Cetra was trying to destroy the Jenova Remnants within him like they would undoubtedly try with Sephiroth in the future.

Harry shook his head finally sitting down, "I don't know. All I know is that this war is on its way out, once it's finished... I have to return to Earth.

"The Prophesy will _have_ to be completed."

-

**And Chapter Five completed! Hee, Bet none of you ever considered the fact that Jenova was from Harry's world ne? Well. All except for one very smart cookie who figured it out in Chapter three. 8) Raven will be updated sooner or later. Have no fear.**

Araceil


	6. Interlude

**Beyond the Emerald Dawn**

**INTERLUDE**

-

[Letters from Order agents assigned to searching for one Harry James Potter, vanished July 4th, to Albus Dumbledore and recorded for Order Purposes.

-

4 / 7 / 1995 – Letter 1. Delivered by owl: HEDWIG

_Death Eaters in Privet Drive_

--Sent by one Harry James Potter, copied and filed.

-

5 / 7 / 1995 – Letter 2. Delivered by owl: HERMIES

_Dumbledore,_

_Privet Drive is in ruins. Death Count is at 100-percent, Arabella Figg amongst the dead. No sign of Potter. Relatives: Petunia Dursley nee Evans and Dudley Dursley bled dry via Dark Arts ritual, Vernon Dursley Avada Kedavra victim._

_What the devil is going on and where is Potter? As the only survivor he is demanded for questioning in the brutal massacre of Little Whinging. The Ministry will be sending UNSPEAKABLES to Hogwarts to ferret him out, hiding him will be impossible Headmaster, hand him over before things become unpleasant._

_Percival Weasley_

_Junior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic_

--Sent by one Percy Weasley, copied and filed.

-

13 / 7 / 1995 – Letter 5. Delivered by owl: ERROL

_Dear Albus,_

_What on earth is going on Albus? Where is Harry? Its well overdue he come out of hiding and start spending some time here where we can keep an eye on him. The poor dear must have been fairly traumatised being attacked by Death Eaters like that! His whole neighbourhood Albus, what he needs is a loving family environment where he can take his mind off all that horrific unpleasantness. _

_He's still just a child Albus, he needs the adults in his life to keep him safe! Not throw him under every speeding train bearing a Dark Mark that comes at him!_

_I want him at the Burrow within the week. If not. You will not like the consequences._

_Molly._

--Sent by one Molly Weasley nee Prewitt, copied and filed.

-

31 / 7 /1995 – Letter 18. Delivered by owl: HEDWIG

_Dumbledore,_

_WHERE IS MY GODSON YOU _[Due to use of extreme profanity, the following passages have been censored. (By a very amused Alastor Moody who secretly admired the vocabulary his previous student had picked up during his absence.)

_Remus_

_Marauder Out For Vengeance!_

--Sent by one Remus Lupin, copied and filed –by a very intimidated and paranoid Albus Dumbledore.

-

10 / 10 / 1995 – Letter 25. Delivered by owl: EBONY

_Albus,_

_Have tracked Death Eaters to small underground Mountain complex in Latvia. _

_No sign of Potter. Will update soon._

_Shacklebolt_

--Sent by one Kingsley Shacklebolt, copied and filed.

-

29 / 10 / 1995 – Letter 27. Delivered by owl: EBONY

_Albus,_

_No sign of Potter. Complex has been thoroughly searched. Many Dark Artefacts and books found, several people rescued: 3 Aurors, 2 Order members (Vance and Fletcher) and 6 muggles –all Obliviated and placed into psychiatric help in Canada. Nineteen dead including Dung._

_Will give better report at next meeting._

_Shacklebolt_

--Sent by one Kingsley Shacklebolt, copied and filed.

-

5 / 3 / 1996 – Letter XX. Sent by owl???

_Dumbledore,_

_Rumours of Potter being in America were a trap._

_Death Eaters got Mundy._

_Following up on next lead to Albania, will report back soon._

_Shacklebolt_

--Sent by one Kingsley Shacklebolt, copied and filed.

-

16 / 12 / 1998 – Letter XXX. Sent by Paper Messenger

_Professor,_

_Found Dark Artefact, charms declare this to be used in the ritual that bled Petunia Dursley and Dudley Dursley dry. Magic trace sent to UNSPEAKABLE undercover agents._

_We're getting close._

_Hermione Granger_

--Sent by one Hermione Granger, copied and filed.

-

3 / 1 / 1999 – Letter XXX. Sent by owl???

_Bee,_

_Confirmed._

_Artefact used. Transportation Ritual used, will explain later, long distance Apparation –galactic long distance._

_Look up Chaos Sorceress Jenova Slytherin_.

_Swan_

--Sent by one Cho Chang (UNSPEAKABLE), copied and filed.

-

**Historical Extract:** Jenova Slytherin, Chaos Sorceress

Jenova Slytherin was the Chaos Sorceress whom single-handedly tried to destroy the planet by trying to merge her Magical essence with that of the immortal and infinite power of our own planet. She is the creator of the Slytherin line, birthing three sons and forcing them through a series of lethal Dark Magic rituals to ensure her ideals would never die, that they would be imprinted in their blood for millennia to come. Jenova was the root of the Slytherin line, and will be its end.

This Chaos Sorceress was banished from Earth through use of a forbidden teleportation ritual to a far off, supposedly barren wasteland planet; many hoped that with her banishment that the curse of her bloodline would fade. But evidentially, the curse can only die when the Sorceress does. Meaning she had already achieved a partial integration, meaning she was _already immortal at the time of her banishment_.

-

Albus put down the crumbling textbook and rubbed at his tired blue eyes, fighting back the urge to start sobbing. Jenova Slytherin was alive. And Harry was on the same planet as the Chaos Sorceress.

For the first time since Albus Dumbledore inadvertently murdered his sister, he placed his head in his arms and cried himself to sleep where it was beyond Fawkes' capabilities to sooth him.

He deserved it after all. This was all his fault.

-

**Sorry about the HUGE wait on chapters guys. Work can do that to a girl. Especially when you're looking for it.**

**:D I hope you guys enjoyed this ****small**** peek into what's going on at Earth. Sixth chapter will be up soon, its already half done and waiting for a bit of polish and the like. It'll be up soon. (**I hope

Araceil


	7. Chapter 6

**BEYOND THE EMERALD DAWN**

**-**

**CHAPTER SIX**

-

East Corel was possibly the cleanest area of the city, also the most heavily guarded, so it made sense that would be where the record-room and various hospitals and labs for cloning Material, items and deciphering the Jenova Code.

Harry however was more interested in the war-room, it was little more than a squat bunker at the base of the mountain but it fulfilled their requirements well enough. And no doubt it would be where Cloud was waiting with several other high-ranked fighters.

Stepping through the open door and into the relative gloom of the bunker he had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at the sight of the blond General pouring over maps and fatality charts and records of Jenova's movements across the planet. Giving Reno a sly grin the black haired male kept silently behind his Superior Officer and tapped him on the shoulder, making the blond start horribly; Cloud whirled around with every intention of _breaking_ the person who managed to get close enough to attack him only to blink when an apple was promptly shoved into his mouth.

"Eat." Harry ordered as he ducked away and escaped to the other side of the room while Cloud looked cross-eyed at the fruit caught between his teeth. "I know you skipped out on breakfast Spike. Eat it or I'll pin you down and force feed it to you." The emerald eyed male threatened, a small smirk crossing his features suggesting that he probably would find such a situation highly amusing. Cloud merely frowned and began munching on the apple while Reno sniggered silently to himself.

Zack politely covered his mouth to hide the laughter that shone quite obviously in his eyes, further causing Cloud's cheeks to darken in embarrassment, especially when Sephiroth who had been silent and observing everything from the shadows smirked and chuckled silently.

"Why'd you run off earlier?" Zack finally asked and Harry paused and gave him a level look, gauging him. Which only further made his '_oniichan_' concerned, biting his lip, Harry nodded abruptly and eyed the room in paranoia before flicking his hands out in a complicated motion that was understood by all.

'_Are we bugged?_'

AVALANCHE looked to Nanaki and Takao whom were rarely apart now that they had found each other, the two great felines closed their eyes and stretched their senses out, looking for that ever so quiet high-pitched feedback whine. The sound of the electrical current humming in a small spot.

"We're clean." Takao spoke, amber eyes opening, "What is this about Cub?" she asked, having long ago adopted Harry had one of her younglings due to the fact she was cloned from a dead _male_ of her species from the Icicle area, she was infertile. A fact that Shera and Laura were working on correcting using the research Nanaki's grandfather had collected over the years.

The black haired male rubbed at the back of his neck, closing his eyes, he had hoped to put this off for a while, at least to figure out how to word it so people wouldn't get overly iffy about it.

"You guys know I'm not from this planet correct?" At their various nods, ignoring Sephiroth's expression of alarmed shock/horror (Not that you could really tell with his poker face.) Harry continued, "Turns out that Jenova is from my home world. She's always been interested in my life before Hojo's lab, from what I could gather, I'm the first person she's met capable of conversing with her. She's what we know as a Dark Witch or a Chaos Sorceress as she was referred to in her time. She was sent here a very, very long time ago because I've never heard of her in my history lessons. She was sent here through the same means that I was, a large solidified Runic Circle made from Blood, Magic and Mako. My guess is that she was sent here by a man we call Merlin, he's the only person I can think of magically powerful enough to not only _create _the object that sent us here, but use it without the blood sacrifice. Last night... I had a Vision of Earth. Not a nightmare but a glimpse of a Death Eater Raid, something which I can only see through Voldemort's eyes.

"My scar link is still active, that means the Prophesy is still active as well. I... may, no _will_, have to return to earth once this war is finished." He concluded, pausing slightly to gauge the reactions of everyone in the room.

Zack had gone very still and very quiet, his long hair obscuring his face, glowing blue eyes shuttered and hidden in darkness, every line in his body was tense. Cloud had a similar posture only his eyes were fixed upon Harry's face, the emotion in them was very difficult to decipher but the closest Harry could glean from them was something akin to betrayal. Reno was a cross between angry and sad, Halley was thoughtful as was Sephiroth whom was eyeing Harry warily. Takao's hackles were raised and Nanaki had moved protectively beside her while Yuffie and Vincent whom had only just entered into the room looked grim, Ryuu as always had a flawless poker face and gave nothing away though the darkening of his glowing blue eyes was a hint all in itself.

Harry took a deep breath, hating himself just a little bit more with every word but know that it was the truth and he wouldn't back down on the matter.

"I need to end the war on earth or... I know Voldemort isn't as bad as Hojo but I can't just let people die! The majority of people on my world don't even _know_ about magic! They don't deserve to get dragged into a war and forced under a dictator ship where they don't even have the right to live simply because they don't have Mako in their blood! I don't want to leave, hell, even though we're in the middle of a war you guys are the best thing that's ever happened to me! I'm happy here damnit, but I can't just pack-up and leave the person I was behind, the past always catches up to you as everyone in this damn room should know." He ranted shooting a pointed look at Sephiroth who stiffened at the implication, his eyes narrowing before Harry sneered, baring his canines and turned away, rubbing at his face as he leaned against the table.

"I don't expect any of you to understand, not completely at least. But trust me to make my own decision on this, its something I need to do."

"And you think you'll have to do it on your own?" Zack growled as he turned Harry's face to lock eyes with him, there was a tense moment in the room before Zack seemed to find whatever it was he had been looking for and dragged his little brother into a tight one armed hug. "Kid, we'll cross the bridge of your returning to that asshole planet of yours when the time comes. Right now, we have bigger fish to fry."

Harry nodded silently before glancing at Cloud, the blond was studying the map on the table, Harry bit his lower lip, Cloud's eyes weren't moving.

-

It was another three days before each of the Generals left again, Cloud and Harry moving to rejoin with their divisions in the Desert area of the Golden Saucer, which had been moved further North into the mountains that ringed Corel where it also acted as both an air-hanger for the Highwind and various other airships to dock and a communications relay tower whilst still fulfilling its requirements as a theme-park.

Harry glanced out of the corner of his eye to Cloud and Kin whom were keeping pace beside Denzel and his black Chocobo Noir, ever since his minor rant in the War room things between them had been... strained.

It had been like that between all of them for that matter, everyone save him and Zack, but since Sephiroth had been unwilling to go anywhere near him and Zack had wanted to spend time with his old friend so they hadn't seen much of him. The black haired Meteor Avatar sighed and ran his fingers through Twilight's feathers, the black Chocobo cooing in concern as she sensed her master's mood,

"You shouldn't be so worried _Midoriko_." Harry jolted a little and looked to the brown haired woman beside him astride a golden feathered armoured Chocobo, Arianna Wilwarin one of the lancers who had been with Cloud's Division since Harry had. They'd trained together to some extent and for an unenhanced human she was scarily good with whatever weapons she picked up, the Midgar born woman had an easy laidback aura that could just as easily become a blazing fury.

"I'm not _worried_. I'm..." Harry corrected pausing as he searched for the right words to describe the sinking and squirming feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Worried?" Anna teased, a playful glint colouring her grey eyes.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, for once free of his customary green bandana, and chuckled slightly, "OK, OK, I'm worried." He admitted,

The woman leaned back in her saddle, hands behind her resting on the rump of her bird who ruffled his feathers slightly in indignation, "About?" She asked.

Harry glanced over at Cloud again and slid past him to the soldiers moving along with them, following them, back into hell, to the front lines and to their deaths more than likely. It pulled at something, even after two years of constant war, even after three years in Hojo's lab, even after the five years he spent at Hogwarts and the ten with his relatives, living in the darkness of his cupboard and leaning the meaning of survival before he learned the meaning of love.

Anna sat up, noticing how her friend's eyes had gone distant again, she realised then.

"You're worried about whether we'll win, and what will come if we do." She guessed, Harry nodded,

"Partly." He admitted before sighing and digging into his pocket for a bottle of water, snagged from the Water Plants in Corel, carefully pressing his W-Item Materia against the bottle the item glowed briefly and Harry brought it up to his mouth with both hands, as if to use it, before pulling the bottle away in one hand, the residual glow that had been attached to the bottle in his other hand, a glow which turned into an identical bottle of water to the one in his other hand which he slipped back into the bag.

Anna chuckled, she remembered Reno and Zack teaching them that little trick, it was how they managed to keep their items in so much stock, Ethers, Elixers, Potions, Water, Rations, Greens(1).

"Let's just say the past is coming back to haunt me." Harry muttered, "I have to leave once the war is done with. Go home and sort out my issues there." He explained, "I don't think... I don't think the General's very happy about it, I don't think anyone's very happy about it to tell the truth and it's... its kind of getting to me. Its something I have to do. Sleeping Dragons won't lie. Y'know?"

Anna sighed and slung an arm around Harry, knuckling the shorter male's hair, "Of course Sleeping Dragons lay. But they also snore flammable snot so we won't go into that. When abouts do you think this'll be over?" She asked, resting her head on Harry's shoulder,

"Soon. One way or another the end of the war is coming up soon. I just don't know who's going to win."

"No one does kiddo. No one. But as for your going home, can I come too? This Charlie character sounds like my kind of guy." She admitted smirking lewdly bringing a laugh to her friend,

"I've been away for almost five years, for all I know he could be dead or married by now." He pointed out, Anna sniffed waving a hand dismissively,

"You act as though you've never heard of cloning let alone adultery." She declared in a pompous tone of voice before winking at Harry, "You got any of Tifa's winter mead left? I heard Reno complaining that you'd snagged the last of it."

Harry smirked and dug into his bag looking for the requested alcohol, not noticing the contemplative expression on the General's face as he thought over the conversation he just overheard.

-

Being back at the front lines was a surprisingly relieving thing for Harry, out here, he didn't have to worry about ShinRa trying to stab him in the back, he just had to worry about monsters doing it for them. Out here you knew who your enemies were and who you could trust, you were all soldiers, all fighting for survival, anything that wasn't human or Chocobo you killed on sight before they killed you.

A welcome simplicity to Corel where he was constantly worried about some stupid ShinRa flunky, or worse –Palmer, discovering his origins. Only AVALANCHE and a select few others knew who and where he came from, to everyone else he was Cloud's lieutenant General and Zack's quirky little brother who was snatched by Hojo at the beginning of the war to be a weapon against him in revenge.

That was the official story anyway.

Harry refused to even contemplate enlightening them to the truth; he knew how the soldiers reacted to the Experiments and the remaining ShinRa SOLDIERs, caught between awe, fear and suspicion. He had no desire to ever be treated like that again, it simply wafted too much of life back home. The black haired male sighed from where he was perched on one of the broken and twisted turrets of an old tank, they had stopped for the day in a valley just south of Nibelheim on the side of the river closest to Cosmo Canyon.

Sephiroth had gone to Wutai with Yuffie and Vincent, the ex-TURK requesting his presence to inform the white-haired General of several home truths that he had refused point-blank to inform ShinRa of. Smart man. Sephiroth had gone without complaint but Harry was beginning to think his lack of argument had a little more to do with Yuffie's diminutive Body-guard and Lieutenant General than Vincent's Off the Record information. Ryuuki had that unfortunate habit, he got under your skin and you ended up either loving or hating the little bastard. Lucky for the brat Harry had taken to loving him like he would a little brother, instead of hating him like a little brother as Reno had –the fact that they looked alike was just salt in Reno's wounds.

The green eyed Lieutenant sighed propping his head up on his knee, Hojo was planning something, the Lifestream was agitated and he could hear Aerith and Illfana singing to them, to those with the enhancements to warn them. But it seemed that only he could hear them. He supposed it was because of the magical core within him that linked himself to the Lifestream, one of the reasons why he adapted so effectively with the Mako and Jenova cells he was pumped with, he already had both being naturally produced in his body, Hojo's experimentations just doubled their production.

'-_Soon-_'

Harry watched the sunset over the jagged peaks of Mount Nibel, his mind shivering with those ghostly, insubstantial words that carried with them the fate of the entire planet.

'_Yeah. Real soon._'

He jumped, and vanished into the darkness below.

-

They had been moving for little over a month now, fighting battle after battle, Harry had collected over 500 of his comrade's Soldier tags to place on the memorial back in Central Corel, he had released their Chocobos into the wild or to return back and taken again to the front lines. Some birds remained free, others continued to throw themselves into the battles like their previous masters and partners, most Chocobo lancers were seemingly suicidal adrenalin junkies, but these birds were bred for war and they revelled in it.

Twilight cooed, an oddly bubbling purr in the back of her throat, if Harry had not magically bonded to the avian he would have been worried about her health at the sound, but he knew that the sound was the affect his magic had upon her. She was evolving, ever so slightly, but she was. She was also in heat, which meant Harry was fending off her various admirers amidst the other Chocobos, Cloud's Kin, Anna's Carrot, Lau's Yumi and one of the other lancers that was really too new for Harry to bother learning the name of had a dark green who seemed to be particularly violent were the top contenders for the position of 'daddy' for her future hatchlings. Unfortunately for them, Twilight was completely uninterested and possessed a bad habit of biting them if they tried to approach her. Lau had complained bitterly and non-stop until Cloud just looked at him and told him to shut up and get to work instead of worrying about his Chocobo's libido.

Harry didn't think he'd laughed so much since he'd seen Draco Malfoy bounced around the Entrance Hall as a snow white ferret.

Things between him and Cloud had eased a little, but the younger of the two guessed that the General was still feeling a little betrayed that his friend would be leaving so soon after the conflict finished. And while Harry would have _loved_ to stay, hell he fit in better here than he ever had on earth, he felt that he had paid his debt to Cloud for rescuing him from Hojo's lab so the blond really had no reason to be getting all bitchy about it all.

"Oi Spike!" Harry called over the battlefield, it was only a small skirmish, their main force had _somehow_ managed to sneak up on a scouting party of Enhanced-Malboro on the ridge just north of Rocket Town which had become a relatively small but no less key military base. "Dark Dragon on your six!" He bellowed throwing a single kunai followed by a spell that had it replicating to around fifty odd in midair and falling like deadly rain on the tentacles of the sickly poison green creature, armed with poison oozing markings that Harry had seen capture one of their Chocobos and promptly kill the bird in a fashion Harry had no wish to ever witness again or experience.

Watching the blond General from the corner of his eye square off to the sleek black reptile –whose wings were too stick-like and scraggly to ever achieve the power of flight, he unleashed a high-powered _Crucio_, one of the only things he had encountered that could prevent the Malboro from attacking while he used the curse to drain away the Mako within it and boil the Jenova cells. Killing the monster where normally it would drive any human insane.

Which he supposed would be something he would face when he returned to Earth. Death Eaters were far too fond of that curse, he would have to find a way to ditch Zack if there was ever an attack, he didn't want his brother to die.

"Stop spacing out." Cloud commanded from his left elbow, making the black haired Lieutenant fairly squeal and whirl around, scythe ripping through the throat of a Dark Dragon as it leered over them, a few strands of golden hair drifted in the wind indicating Cloud hadn't ducked quite fast enough for his trade-mark chocobo's ass hair to remain unscathed.

Harry merely chuckled a little and bounced backwards, "Can't help it if there's nothing here to give me a challenge. You're on autopilot more than anyone usually notices Spike, don't tar me with your brush!" he retorted with a grin before he ducked under a tentacle and halved the Malboro, head to foot, right down the middle before diving back into the dense knot of monsters before Cloud could give chase and dish out one of Zack's atomic-wedgies on him.

"You're the only one who notices!" Cloud snapped back, only to be answered by Harry's laughter somewhere in the general vicinity of a sudden gout of reinforced **Fire3** and **Flare**.

Anna sped past on her Chocobo, usually she was on the fringes of the battle but this time she took the opportunity to get into the thick of things, her fist smacking Cloud on the side of the head, an act of insubordination that had those who caught it gaping in shock until the threat of death by monster snapped them out of it.

"Stop sulking and start killing General Spacer!" The girl shouted as her golden mount clawed its way up the corpse of the Dark Dragon and allowed her to take a dive down into the melee on the other side, battle cry issuing from her throat as she pulled a _Battle Axe_ that had to weigh more than she did and started hewing heads from shoulders, tentacles from Malboros and silly top-knots from the Wutaian soldiers.

Cloud just shook his head and smiled slightly as he extended his hand, shooting off an Enemy Skill **Beta**. He would have to introduce Harry to the Midgar Zolems, maybe he could convince them to fight for him, or at least not try to crush the troops moving out so much.

"_EAT SCYTHE MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!_" He heard his lieutenant scream from somewhere in the general vicinity of 'over there'. Cloud chuckled wryly.

Maybe not.

-

Sure it was the war to end all wars, the one that would decide the fate of the world. Whether or not everyone died or lived.

It did _not_ mean that Harry would stop toasting Marshmallows and singing camp-fire songs with Arriana when they finally stopped for the night. No matter WHAT Lau told him.

"Did you see his face?" Anna cackled kicking back a swig of Winter Mead, her cheeks rosy with the amount of alcohol she'd consumed. The woman giggled, a high pitched annoying sound that reminded Harry of fingernails on chalk boards, he remembered now why the woman refused to giggle in public unless extremely inebriated. "Looked like he'd just walked in on his granny get it on with the paperboy!" The woman hooted lewdly, painting a mental picture that Harry could have done without but never the less laughed at.

"That mental imagery is not only disgusting but extremely uncalled for." One of the other Lancers pointed out with a revolted look on his dark brown face. Harry grinned and wormed his way up beside the Lancer,

"But you luuuurv the mental imagery Riiiiiiichie!" He cooed, fluttering his eyelashes up at him, prompting a look of disdainful amusement and slight horror while Anna practically crawled into his lap and draped herself, sniggering against him.

"Yeeeeeeah Riiiiichie!" She continued with a small guffaw, "mental imagery for the win when you're in the shower, hot water gliding across your skin dipping down your arms from where your hands are –"

"Enough!" The dark lancer barked, his face flushed in mortification as the other two cackled gleefully around him.

"_Lieutenant General siiir!!_" Squealed one of their R.T.O.'s as she practically pelted into the campfire, skidding on the ground to try and stop, "An urgent message from General Yuffie sir, the Wutai frontline is under attack! Jenova Spawn level OMEGA! She's requesting immediate back-up, sir." She recited breathlessly, her features pale, almost grey-green.

Due to the Boss level Jenova spawn Hojo sent out to fight every now and again –far too often in everyone else's opinion, ShinRa had rated them in terms of power so their soldiers would know what they were up against. OMEGA fell only slightly short of facing Jenova herself, which meant, even with Sephiroth Vincent Yuffie and Ryuu Wutai was next to screwed if Cloud's division didn't show up and show up _now!_

"Anna. Get the General." Harry ordered getting to his feet, all sign of playfulness gone. "Richard, spread the message, I want everyone suited booted and ready to move out five minutes ago. Time is of the essence. Private Evans report this matter to Corel please, then I want you to stay at Rocket and relay communications over to us. I'll keep my frequency open, its 31.10. Don't forget it. MOVE!" He commanded watching as each of them jumped to their feet and ran to complete his order.

Harry growled angrily as he whistled for Twilight, the black Chocobo racing past, her body tilted for him to swing up and onto as he moved through the encampment they had set up passing along the message. They make for Wutai the moment they were ready and prepare for combat with GAMMA and upward level Jenova Spawn. No one looked very happy. Least of all him.

Why had Hojo changed tactics all of a sudden?

Unless Jenova had a hand in this... he started to curse, more than likely, the Sorceress knew that Harry Cloud and the other Experiments were aware of his usual attack plans, the way he thought and moved, she added her own touches to make sure that they would be caught off guard. He cursed some more as the army began to gather and finish packing away, they were only minutes away from moving out, every second was precious and even at full speed it would take them over 6 hours to get to Wutai and that wasn't even considering the BETA Spawn and natural monsters that would be trying to pick them off one by one, stop them and just generally get in the fucking way.

"Harry." The black haired male jolted violently in his seat and twisted around to spew a large number of profanities at his General who merely blinked and frowned, Harry fell quiet and glared up Northwards, "He's changed tactics." The blond commented waiting for the moment Lau informed them that the preparations were complete.

"These are Jenova's tactics. Not Hojo's. They're too _snake-like_ to be Hojo's." The black haired male growled darkly, his hatred for Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort were completely cowed and silenced in the face of his seething _loathing_ for Jenova and Hojo.

"Regardless. There is still a chance that if the forces attacking Wutai fall there may be Hojo's assault to Rocket to consider." Cloud pointed out quietly as his radio crackled to life, Lau's voice informing them that everyone was ready to move out. With a small nod Kin warbled shrilly and took off, talons practically tearing the grass out beneath him, Twilight racing right alongside his elbow, their riders hugging low against their backs to avoid getting torn off at the high-speeds they were travelling.

Harry groaned pitifully, "I'll call Reno and the rest of the TURKs to keep an eye on the area, if things get hairy they can always send for Zack to hold things down until we return." He shouted over the wind to the General who gave him a slit-eyed nod as Kin and Twilight led their army across what little of the grassy plains of Rocket remained and onto the beach where they then proceeded to race across the water. Talons moving too quickly to sink under the water as the latent magic in their avian mounts ensured that they would not fall into the sea water.

'_Please, for once, let us be in time._' Harry thought desperately, his mind replaying the words of the Cetra over and over again, the warning or promise their ethereal voices whispered in the darkness of green tainted nightmares.

'-_soon-_'

-

(1) W-Item and the Water Bottle: Its a cheat you can use in the game to increase the number of items you have. As long as you have two of them you can select W-item and then cancel it before you use it and increase the item you selected. I figured it would be useful to the soliders to have.

-

**PLEASE READ**

**There's probably only going to be a few more chapters of the War in Gaia, then they go to earth. **

**Now, some people expressed some concerns about pairings and the like. I will be honest and say this right now, I am a slash fan. But I'm not exactly strictly guy/guy either. As such, there will be all kinds of pairings in this and **_none_** of it is going to be in your face making out/sex. These people are in the middle of a war, their libidos are taking a backseat to their lives here. So please, stop asking for graphic sexual scenes. I'm not keen on turning this into porn that happens to have a war-story in there somewhere.**

**Its not going to happen. As for pairings, I'll put them up here and now so you guys can put your fears to rest.**

Yuffie/Vincent, Elmyra/Barret, Cid/Shera, Denzel/Marlene, Zack/Tifa, Reeve/Hermione, Scarlet/Rufus, Sephiroth/Ryuu (Only hinted at though)

Neville/Luna, Bill/OMC Gabrielle/Natalie (GoF, Gryffindor first year) Tracy Davis(Slytherin)/Hannah Abbot(Hufflepuff) Ron/Susan Bones, Millicent/Draco.

**There. All the pairings I'm planning and these will **_all_** be largely background, mentioned once or twice. So please stop complaining about how you're a straight guy who doesn't like slash and won't read if I put it in. I'm a straight girl who hates it when her bestfriend won't shut up about lesbians but I'm still putting it in because I believe in free-love. (I only dislike the fact she mainly because everytime I see her its non-stop lesbians this lesbians that in front of my parents.)**

**The only prominent pairing in this is probably going to be Vincent/Yuffie –because of the political ramifications that a Princess would cause, and Cid/Shera because of the cute baby-scenes that I can put in. XDD As for why Bill isn't paired with Fleur, well their wedding was attacked (Just like in the canon) and unfortunately Fleur's just not that good at Defence Against the Dark Arts. She died. Its a plot point that will be explained later.**

**Thankyou for reading this and I'm sorry that I ranted a bit but I really needed to get that off my chest.**

Araceil


	8. Interlude Northern Wutai

Uber apologies for everyone waiting for the seventh chapter of this but my computer has been spazzing quite badly lately

**Uber apologies for everyone waiting for the seventh chapter of this but my computer has been spazzing quite badly lately.**

**Mainly due to my wonderful fathe'rs fault. He deleted our antivirus and anti-spyware stuff a good eight months ago because it was making our computer slower than roadworks at rush hour. It was only recently we had much of a problem with it (we got lucky) so I went off and downloaded an antivirus program. It's taken quite a while to clean up the computer – especially considering how many Trojans we had, I wanted to throttle my dad – but unfortunately in the process I lost a few files. **

**Including chapter 7.**

**So you guys are going to have to wait a little while longer. I'm so sorry.**

**I knocked together this little interlude especially for you as an apology – doesn't hurt that it also sets up what I ****now**** have planned for the seventh chapter. You'll love it when I get it posted. Hopefully sooner rather than later.**

**-**

**INTERLUDE: Northern Wutai**

-

Sephiroth had always had a secret admiration for the warriors of Wutai, regardless of their chosen pursuits, the Samurai, the Shinobi, the Summoners and the Materia Users. He liked the way they split their forces, specialising them but giving them enough skill in all areas to ensure that if one avenue is cut off, there is still another open.

Currently, he was out with General Kiseragi's unit up in the mountains dealing with a Monster den that was trying to burrow into the underground passages that ran through the mountains back into Wutai. Shogun Kiseragi (Godo) had collapsed the majority of the tunnels at the front line into Wutai, leaving just the one heavily defensible entrance for his soldiers to make a swift retreat through. Though how Hojo knew about them Sephiroth dreaded to know, the idea that there could possibly be a _spy_ somewhere within the upper-ranks was horrifying.

The white haired General jerked slightly in surprise as someone small and light vaulted over his shoulder, using the armoured pad as a stepping stone for twin Wakazashi to reach those troublesome flying monstrosities. Butchering them in midair even as the figure unleashed a burst of **Fire3** onto a large mutation of a Midgar Zolem bearing down on them.

Well.

If Lieutenant General Hagane Ryuu was here – and using him as a spring board – then that meant that General Kiseragi Yuffie and her consort Vincent Valentine weren't too far off either. Sephiroth shook his head as he continued to wield the Mesamune, not bothering to be careful with the lightning fast red head darting through the battle, from what the white-haired General could see, he was trained as both Samurai and Shinobi. Unsurprisingly considering how he was most likely trained from birth to protect Godo's daughter.

Yuffie screamed a war-cry her giant Shuriken slashing through thick armour plates like tissue paper; a Mastered Lightning Materia clutched in her other gloved hand, frying enemies left and right. Vincent had transformed and was on a rampage, tearing enemies apart with his barehands... claws.

The dark haired princes arched her spine, kicking her feet up to back flip over a low swept claw; **Lightning3** dispatched the culprit even as she twisted her body in a deadly arc, Shuriken beheading another monster that had trampled over its fallen comrade to reach her. Using the two dead corpses as a spring board the Princess threw her self into the air, Shuriken spinning free from her grasp at such force they punched through another four creatures as if they were nothing more than wet newspaper. Lightning Materia flashed as another six fell to the ground, broiled from the inside out as she landed lightly in the center of her circle of devastation, a tanned arm snapping up and catching her blood and entrail streaked Shuriken as it returned to her.

She pushed herself to her feet and raced forward, a red blur passing her going in the opposite direction, an Elixer being passed between the two in a practiced movement in that small split second before they each over shot and returned to the fight.

Twin blades worked in tandem, one blocking the other attacking, both defending, both attacking, Contain and x4 Slash Materia affixed to each of his blades unleashing Ice Spells, Lightning Spells and the occasional Wind based spell that left his enemies in little more than broken sacks of flesh, blood and bone. Ryuu moved through the fight, his feet in constant motion, occasionally he would channel energy down his Sword similar to General Cloud's Blade-Beam to cleave an enemy in half.

The battle was short compared to most; the creatures were large, slow and clumsy, more suited to digging through and creating an opening for the others. Brawlers.

Yuffie groaned sitting her weary body down on a semi-dismembered corpse, trying to rub some feeling back into her calves while avoiding a rather nasty looking gash, Sephiroth could see Vincent somewhere over her shoulder, purple skinned muscle slick with blood as whatever Beast he was this time tore apart a still twitching carcass. Ryuu limped around one of the larger Malboro bodies, the entire left side of his skull slick and matted with blood, his own or something else's the white haired General could not see but the rest of him was fairly scratched up but nothing serious.

Hagane Ryuu was a small man, roughly in his mid-twenties he had long red hair that hung to his elbows, pulled back into a no nonsense braid that was now loose and hanging around him like a crimson war banner, his skin was pale and his features feline if slightly androgynous with blue eyes. Apart from that, he was swathed in blood and a lot of it.

"_Kiserahi-himim_." He slurred slightly staggering to the dark haired woman, his devotion to his general was rare in Sephiroth's experience. Zack had been the only one of his Lieutenants to actually have cared for him beyond a paycheque, a weapon and a means of bolstering his own career.

The red head was obviously concussed, that blood plastered to the side of his head was still oozing through his hair, Yuffie had obviously been able to tell and pulled out an Elixer from her hip-pouch and practically wrenching the dazed soldier's head to the side and pouring the multicoloured liquid across the wound. Prompting a howl of pain from the red head as he tried to wrench his head away from the Ninja-Princess, Yuffie kept a tight grip on him as she continued to pour the liquid over the head wound, Sephiroth winced and looked away. Using Elixers on head injuries hurt like a bitch, he remembered the cold burning and sensation of sandpaper scraping across his brain only too well.

Eventually the red head stopped struggling and merely leaned against the dark haired woman who tossed the Elixer bottle over her shoulder and ran a hand through his hair checking the injury carefully, but also relishing the chance to play with her bodyguard's hair. He'd always slapped her hand when they were young for trying to braid it or do anything to it, her reputation as a prankster was fairly renowned even back then.

"H-Hime." Ryuu croaked pushing himself away from her and staggering to his feet, "Y-You need to see this." He rasped even as he ran a _Cure2_ across the gash in her leg and over the smaller cuts and abrasions on his own body.

Yuffie and Sephiroth frowned as they followed the red head, he lead them to the cliff's edge overlooking the ocean, the Northern continent's beach-line was only _just_ visible from where they were standing.

But that wasn't what the diminutive Lieutenant was pointing at.

It was the seeping black stain that was steadily marching across the snow-capped mountains directly towards them. The thick black occasionally broken by the monstrous juggernought that lumbered with them, OMEGAs, four of them.

A chill ran down Yuffie's spine.

"We need to get back to Wutai." She ordered.

The red head nodded and swiftly whipped around, racing across the battlefield with eerie familiarity as he made his way to the nearest RTO to relay his Princess's orders to the rest of the troops. They were pulling back to Wutai.

Hojo was making his move.

-

**Hope you guys enjoyed this little snippet. And again, I'm really sorry. **

Araceil


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